fr 


T^^r- 


fS~—  3 


7 


I  ALUMNI  LIBRARY, 


|    THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,    f  . 

f  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  # 

C«We,    Dins.on  T7 


—  ^       _  I 


THE 


PORTRAITURE 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN. 


1 


PORTRAITURE 


CHRISTIAN    GEXTLEIttAtf. 


BY  W.  ROBERTS,  ESQ. 

LINCOLN'S  INN. 


Verum  atque  deceus. 


NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED  BY  T.  AND  J.  SWORDS, 
No.  127  Broadway. 

1831. 


»     t 


NEW- YORK : 

TRIN'TED  BY  EDWARD  J.  SWORDS, 
No.  8  Tluuno-itreet. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  strong  expressions  of  approbation  with  which 
the  "  Portraiture  of  a  Christian  Gentleman"  has  been 
received  both  in  England  and  in  this  country,  have 
determined  the  subscribers,  with  the  advice  of  some  of 
their  friends,  to  offer  it  to  the  American  public.  They  do 
so,  in  the  confidence  that  it  will  exert  a  strong  influence 
in  behalf  of  the  great  principles  of  practical  religion,  and 
afford  instruction,  in  an  interesting  form,  to  many  who 
might  not  so  readily  receive  it  from  a  different  source. 

In  its  original  state,  the  work  preserved  a  very  close 
adherence  to  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  an  English 
gentleman — -more  particularly  in  frequent  references  to 
the  connexion  of  such  an  individual  with  the  church 
establishment  and  civil  polity  of  Great-Britain.  Know- 
ing the  difficulty  with  which  readers,  especially  careless 
readers,  abstract  remarks  of  general  importance  from 
such  circumstantial  allusions,  and  the  hinderance  to 
usefulness  which  they  consequently  present,  the  pub- 
lishers have  deemed  it  expedient  to  omit  a  few  sentences. 


VI  ADVERTISEMENT. 

and  short  passages  of  this  description,  and  to  curtail 
three  entire  sections,  wholly  relative  to  matters  inap- 
plicable to  the  citizen  of  the  United  States.  They 
believe  that  this  measure  has  deprived  the  work  of  little, 
if  any,  of  its  interest,  and  tends  materially  to  increase 
its  utility. 

T.  &  J.  SWORDS. 
New-York,  July,  1831. 


TO 

MRS.  HANNAH  MORE, 


My  dear  Madam, 

Having  recently  perused  your  important 
work  on  the  Spirit  of  Prayer  with  some 
advantage,  I  hope,  to  my  own  principles 
and  practice,  it  came  into  my  head  to  con- 
sider, with  more  than  ordinary  attention, 
the  actual  state  of  the  believing  world,  as 
to  the  conduct  and  method  of  this  essential 
duty  in  Christian  families.  When  one's 
thoughts  are  stirred  into  strong  action  on 
an  interesting  and  favourite  subject,  they 
soon  ripen  into  projects  ;  and  we  often  find 
a  difficulty  in  restraining  these  projects 
within  practicable  limits.  My  first  inten- 
tions were  to  write  something  for  publica- 
tion on  the  "  practice  of  prayer,"  as  a 
supplement  to  your  valuable  performance ; 


Vlll  DEDICATION. 

but  those  intentions  soon  expanded  into 
various  larger  undertakings,  till,  at  length, 
they  settled  down  into  a  resolution  to 
obtrude  upon  the  public  the  sketch  of  a 
"  Christian  Gentleman,"  as  he  presents 
himself  under  the  various  aspects  of  duty 
and  demeanour  proper  to  the  purest  con- 
ception of  that  character.  Whether  I  have 
or  have  not  drawn  and  coloured  the  picture 
correctly,  no  one  is  more  competent  to 
judge  than  yourself.  I  have  endeavoured 
to  portray  a  man  worthy  of  being  intro- 
duced to  the  honour  of  your  acquaintance, 
and  have,  therefore,  kept  as  close  as  I 
could  to  your  own  views  of  spiritual  and 
moral  excellence. 

So  far  as  my  humble  purpose  shall  ap- 
pear to  have  been  usefully  executed,  I  am 
sure  it  will  have  the  advantage  of  your 
countenance  and  approbation,  and  I  desire 
no  success  for  it  on  any  other  grounds. 
Jf,  by  the  favour  of  Almighty  God,  I  shall 
be  accepted  as  an  instrument  in  his  hands 
of  conveying  profitable  counsel  to  some 


DEDICATION.  ix 

of  my  countrymen,  who  contemplate  the 
qualifications  of  a  gentleman  through  the 
medium  of  perverted  sentiment,  and  the 
prejudices  which  naturally  and  almost 
necessarily  result  from  a  prevalent  system 
of  false  education — if  I  shall  be  successful 
in  bringing  over  a  few  to  better  judgment, 
in  a  matter  which  so  greatly  concerns  the 
well-being  of  society,  I  shall  consider  my 
slight  performance  as  superabundantly  re- 
warded. 

I  am,  my  dear  Madam,  with  the  highest 
sense  of  what  I  owe  to  you,  as  one  of  a 
community  so  benefited  by  your  labours, 
and  for  long-continued  personal  kindness, 

Your  affectionate  friend  and  servant, 

W.  R. 

Clapham,  Feb.  1829. 


CONTENTS. 


Section  Ttge 

I. — Introduction 9 

II. — Family  Devotion. — Prayer 16 

III.—    .  .            .  .           Thanksgiving  29 

IV. —    .  .            .  .            Poetry  and  Music  33 

V. —    .  .            .  .           Preparation  for  Prayer  36 

VI. — Unscriptural  Religion 43 

VII.— The  Mechanic  Philosophy 50 

VIII. — Philanthropic  Excesses 61 

IX. — The  Politics  of  the  Christian  Gentleman       -        -  65 
X. — The  Literature  of  the  Christian  Gentleman   -        -  73 
XI. — Family  Government  of  the  Christian  Gentleman   -  85 
XII. — The  exterior  Intercourse  of  the  Christian  Gentleman  87 
XIII.— Familiar  Talk  of  the  Christian  Gentleman     -        -  91 
XIV.— Worldly  Dealings  of  the  Christian  Gentleman        -  99 
XV. — Education  of  the  Christian  Gentleman    ...  103 
XVI.— The  Scriptural  Model  of  a  Christian  Gentleman    -  119 
XVIL— The  Sabbath  of  the  Christian  Gentleman       -        -  126 
XVIII. — The  same  Subject,  under  the  Christian  Dispensa- 
tion    135 

XIX.— The  National  Consecration  of  the  Sabbath     -        -  144 
XX. — The  Deportment  of  the  Christian  Gentleman  in  the 

Worship  of  God  on  the  Lord's  Day   -        -        -  148 
XXI. — Postures  appropriate  to  the  several  Parts  of  the 

Service 159 

XXII.— The  Duty  of  joining  in  the  Psalmody    -        -        -  161 
XXIIL— The  Subject  of  the  Christian  Gentleman's  Sabbath 

continued. — General  Conclusion       ...  166 


THE 

PORTRAITURE 

OF  A 

CHRISTIAN    GEXTLEMAX. 


SECTION  I. 

INTRODUCTION, 

The  physical  state  of  the  globe  of  our  earth 
is  not  more  diversified  by  climate,  soil,  and 
cultivation,  than  the  aspect  and  temperature  of 
religion  is  affected  by  the  circumstances,  habits, 
and  prejudices  of  mankind.  Truth  is  immuta- 
ble, determinate,  and  single ;  error  is  fluctuating, 
variable,  and  multifold.  Some  truths  are  abstract, 
and  stand  in  separation  from  man's  infirmity; 
but  others  sustain  the  gross  admixture  of  human 
passions,  ignorances,  and  perversities;  and  of 
this  latter  class  is  religion,  which,  even  in  its 
Christian  form,  and  founded  on  the  oracles  of 
God,,  has  its  perfect  and  unerring  essence  ob- 
scured in  various  degrees,  and  falsified  in  a 
thousand  ways  by  its  connexion  with  corrupt 
natures,  and  its  passage  through  a  medium  of 
contagious  defilement.  To  draw  from  this  pre- 
cious gift  its  real  virtue  and  profit,  the  nearer 

2 


j  0  INTRODUCTION. 

we  get  to  its  source  the  better.  It  is  a  most 
beneficial  exercise  to  the  faculties  of  man  to 
pierce  through  the  subtleties  which  his  own 
presumptuous  understanding  and  vain  curiosity 
have  interposed  to  the  pure  emanation  of  the 
word  of  Jehovah  reposited  in  the  sacred  Scrip- 
tures. To  escape  out  of  the  intricacies  of  human 
invention  to  the  clear  element  in  which  truth 
resides,  is  the  privilege  of  humble  inquiry ;  and 
to  promote  and  assist  this  inquiry,  our  religious 
literature  abounds  in  valuable  directories  and 
expositions.  With  respect,  also,  to  Christian 
practice  generally,  we  are  in  no  want  of  guides 
and  counsellors.  But  how  in  these  days  of 
intellectual  activity,  when  so  much  is  busily 
wrong,  partially  right,  and  essentially  good,  and 
so  many  incongruous  characters  are  crowded 
on  the  same  stage,  amidst  so  much  stirring  and 
strife  of  opinion,  boldness  of  speculation,  and 
contest  for  distinction,  a  pious  individual  is  to 
comport  himself  in  all  his  relations  and  transac- 
tions, so  as  to  reconcile  and  unite  in  one  vocation 
and  system  of  behaviour  the  duties  and  habits 
proper  to  the  Christian  Gentleman,  it  is  the 
object  of  this  little  manual  to  explain.  It  is  not 
Christianity  in  ordinary  life,  but  Christianity  in 
a  special  relation  and  connexion,  that  will  be  the 
subject  of  its  inquiry.     Neglecting  the  plains 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

and  valleys,  it  will  confine  its  views  to  the  garden 
border,  where  the  lily  on  its  graceful  stalk  ex- 
poses its  petals  to  the  sun,  and  to  the  hills, 
where  the  cedar  throws  around  its  lofty  shade. 
That  the  Christian  loses  nothing  by  being  a 
gentleman,  and  that  the  gentleman  gains  greatly 
by  being  a  Christian,  may  be  gathered  from 
the  history  of  our  own  country.  In  various 
proportions,  and  in  various  degrees,  the  union 
has  probably  subsisted  in  the  lives  of  many 
eminent  persons  who  have  flourished  in  remote 
periods ;  but  time  has  cast  into  the  shade  the 
delicate  traces  of  character  in  which  this  coa- 
lescence of  the  Christian  with  the  gentleman  is 
principally  manifested.  We  catch  eagerly  at 
every  anecdote  which  can  bring  us  into  famili- 
arity  with  those  distant  characters,  of  whom 
every  domestic  record  affects  us  with  a  sort  of 
picturesque  interest,  and  are  delighted  with  any 
partial  or  petty  occurrence  in  their  biography 
which  can  help  the  fancy  in  its  efforts  to  com- 
plete the  model.  But  it  is  often  the  fate  of 
researches  into  the  characters  of  our  ancient 
ancestry,  to  find  that  the  nearer  we  approach  the 
reality,  the  less  we  perceive  of  that  union  in 
which  our  fancies  have  indulged,  of  Christian 
graces  with  chivalrous  breeding.  As  the  light 
of  the  Reformation  increased,  the  characters  of 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

English  story  acquired  greater  distinctness,  by 
exhibiting  more  of  their  domestic  lineaments, 
and  presenting  themselves  in  scenes  of  greater 
moral  interest  and  importance.  The  province 
of  history  at  this  period  became  graver  and  more 
careful  to  record  the  share  of  each  personage  in 
the  changes  produced  in  society.  From  the 
commencement  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  many  con- 
siderable men  came  forward  to  view  in  vivacious 
relief ;  and  it  may  do  no  harm  to  hold  them  out 
as  objects  of  general  praise  and  partial  imitation : 
but  with  the  Gospel  before  us,  understood  as 
it  happily  is  by  our  church  and  all  orthodox 
Christians,  it  would  be  impossible,  apart  from 
enthusiasm,  to  admit  that  the  age  of  Elizabeth, 
or  of  her  immediate  successor,  presents  us  with 
a  model  of  a  Christian  gentleman,  composed  of 
the  constituents  which  really  belong  to  that 
character.  Two  men  indeed  there  were  of 
Elizabeth's  court,  Sir  Philip  Sidney  and  the 
Earl  of  Sussex,  in  whom  Englishmen  delight 
to  trace  the  lineaments  of  this  graceful  confor- 
mity and  happy  combination.  But  in  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  the  ingredients  were  disproportionately 
mixed.  The  flavour  of  the  gentleman  pre- 
dominated :  he  was  a  gentleman  rather  after  the 
prescription  of  the  world  than  after  the  Christian 
exemplar.     Yet  such  was  the  beauty  of  his  life, 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

and  the  heroism  of  his  death,  that,  if  the  gentle- 
manly half  of  him  was  not  sufficiently  under  the 
control  of  his  other  and  better  half,  yet  the  grand 
total  and  sum  of  his  perfections  were  such  that 
the  heart  fondly  declines  to  dwell  upon  the 
corrections  and  distinctions  which  the  judgment 
suggests. 

The  Earl  of  Sussex  was  still  nearer  the  ful- 
filment of  the  true  requisites  of  the  Christian 
gentleman.  History  records  nothing  of  him  that 
is  not  in  agreement  with  that  character :  and 
such  we  might  probably  have  pronounced  him 
to  have  been  had  he  stood  nearer  to  our  own 
times,  so  as  to  exhibit  himself  under  a  greater 
variety  of  aspects,  and  especially  in  one  more 
natural  and  ordinary;  but  we  see  him  only 
through  the  vaporous  atmosphere  of  a  court, 
and  know  him  only  in  his  great  concerns.  In 
all  that  we  do  see  of  him,  the  gentleman  and 
Christian  appear  to  have  been  combined ;  and 
upon  the  whole  it  may  be  said  with  some  as- 
surance, upon  the  strength  both  of  what  he  did 
and  what  he  did  not  in  the  midst  of  intrigue, 
detraction,  adulation,  and  ambition,  that  English 
history  has  hardly  proposed  to  imitation  a  better 
man. 

Our  frame  of  polity,  which  has  been  moulded, 
with  a  singular  suitableness  to  the  nature,  wants, 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

and  passions  of  the  beings  to  whose  use  it  is 
devoted — the  product  not  of  convention  or  con- 
trivance, but  of  causes  beyond  human  forecast 
or  control,  and  balanced  like  nature  herself  on 
a   grand  economy  of  compensations,   interior 
springs  of  action,  reciprocal  checks,  and  silent 
securities — is  indented  with  the  marks  and  im- 
pressions of  the  virtuous  and  vigorous  minds 
which  in  the  various  periods  of  its  development 
have   modified  its  character  or  accelerated  its 
progress.     After  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  com- 
menced  what    may   be   called    the  formative 
periods  of  our  history;  during  which,  by  a  suc- 
cession of  crises  and  struggles,  our  destiny  has 
been  matured.     The  order  of  things  has  been 
driven  onwards  by  an  irregular  impulse   and 
vacillating   progression,   actuated   by  vigorous 
intelligences  and  a  manly  aspiration   towards 
moral  and  equitable  freedom  ;  nor  can  we  won- 
der that  a  country  proceeding  in  such  a  career 
of  advancement,  should  have  produced  a  suc- 
cession of  great  and  accomplished  persons.  But 
such  times  and  circumstances  were  not  the  best 
for  the  production  of  that  harmonious  assem- 
blage of  qualities  which  must  meet  in  the  struc- 
ture  of  the   Christian   gentleman.     We  shall 
borrow,   therefore,   but  little   illustration  from 
examples ;  and  the  few  that  will  be  cited  will 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

be  taken  from  recent  times.  Historical  examples 
are  variously  appreciated ;  and  as  it  is  the  design 
of  this  little  book  to  maintain  a  consistent  and 
uniform  tenor  in  its  conception  and  exhibition 
of  the  character  it  delineates,  it  will  be  better 
to  trust  to  the  authority  of  Scripture  and  the 
suggestions  of  experience  than  to  circumscribe 
the  character  within  the  bounds  of  any  particular 
specimen. 

We  will  forthwith,  therefore,  present  the  pic- 
ture of  the  Christian  gentleman  as  it  has  been 
traced  in  the  thoughts  of  one  who  has  frequently 
amused  a  pensive  hour  with  this  sober  exercise 
of  his  fancy  :  sober,  indeed,  will  the  reader  ex- 
claim, when  he  finds  it  begin  with  a  scene  of 
family  worship.  But  we  see  not  where  we  can 
assume  a  more  regular  and  rational  commence- 
ment. 


16  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 


SECTION  II. 

PRAYER. 


We  seem,  at  length,  by  God's  peculiar  bless- 
ing, to  have  arrived  in  this  country  at  a  period 
in  its  religious  advancement,  when  family  wor- 
ship at  the  beginning  and  end  of  each  day  is 
quite  of  course  among  all  professing  Christians 
who  have  any  right  apprehension  of  what  that 
name  imports.  Very  few  that  entertain  any 
serious  prospects  beyond  the  present  world  are 
now  deterred  by  the  silly  dread  of  profane  ridi- 
cule from  instituting  in  their  families  the  decent, 
daily  recognition  of  man's  dependence  upon  the 
Author  of  his  being;  and  even  among  those 
with  whom  that  feeling  of  dependence  is  never 
present  with  its  becoming  influence,  the  dispo- 
sition to  ridicule  what  is  in  itself  so  reasonable, 
and  so  manifestly  belongs  to  the  creed  to 
which  they  nominally  subscribe,  grows  gadually 
weaker  as  common  sense  advances  with  the 
progress  of  experience. 

It  is,  however,  too  true  that  many  masters  and 
fathers,  decorous  in  their  lives,  omit  the  practice 
of  family  prayer.  Some  seem  to  imagine  that 
their  decorous  lives  render  unnecessary  either 


PRAYER.  17 

prayer  or  intercession.  Some  revolt  at  the 
humiliating  posture  and  character  of  suppliants; 
some  appear  to  be  unconcerned  at  the  inconsis- 
tencies they  display  before  the  Creator,  so  long 
as  they  stand  before  his  criminal  creatures  ac- 
quitted of  hypocrisy. 

On  the  class  of  the  self-satisfied,  it  is  not 
within  my  purpose  to  employ  many  words. 
They  have  taken  religion  by  the  wrong  handle, 
and  have  turned  it  upside  down.  They  begin 
with  pretension,  instead  of  confession;  with 
claim,  instead  of  renunciation;  with  security, 
instead  of  alarm;  and  it  is  impossible,  while  the 
man  continues  thus  estranged  from  himself,  for 
any  just  notion  to  be  felt  by  him  of  his  relation 
to  God.  With  such  a  person,  it  is  necessary, 
as  a  preliminary  to  prayer,  that  the  whole  order 
of  his  religious  ideas  should  be  inverted,  and  a 
new  basis  of  thought  and  reflection  set  up  in  his 
mind.  Till  the  worshipper  of  God  shall  have 
attained  to  this  right  view  of  himself  and  of  his 
doings,  in  comparison  with  the  holy  law  of  him 
whom  he  addresses,  and  of  the  fearful  exigence 
of  his  perfect  justice,  he  can  have  no  proper 
subjects  of  prayer,  which  are  all  suggested  by 
the  abject  state  of  the  soul  of  man,  apart  from 
the  hope  of  forgiveness  through  the  Saviour. 

With  respect  to  that  class  whom  a  false  shame 


18  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

and  an  ill-directed  fear  deters  from  this  essential 
duty,  who  may,  doubtless,  often  be  wrong, 
rather  from  the  perversion  of  sentiment  than 
from  the  corruption  of  principle,  a  hope  may  be 
cherished  that  in  the  progress  of  religious  know- 
ledge their  understandings  may  come  to  adjust 
the  case  between  man  and  his  Maker  with  better 
discernment,  and  to  settle  their  proportionate  dues 
with  more  correctness  of  comparison.  When 
sanity  of  sentiment  is  thus  restored,  and  shame 
and  glory  settle  upon  their  proper  objects,  order 
and  arrangement  will  succeed  to  disturbance 
and  confusion,  and  the  lights  and  shadows  will 
be  distinctly  and  beautifully  disposed  throughout 
the  moral  picture. 

Where  prayer  is  a  novel  exercise,  it  may, 
perhaps,  exhibit  itself  in  a  family  with  a  certain 
degree  of  awkwardness.  On  our  first  essay  to 
proceed  in  untried  armour,  our  gait  may  be  un- 
graceful and  constrained ;  and  a  consciousness 
or  apprehension  of  this  will  be  apt  to  embarrass 
the  beginner.  This  ineptitude  may  remain  for 
some  time  after  the  false  shame  above  alluded 
to  has  ceased  to  operate ;  but  none  can  have 
passed  the  first  month  of  initiation  in  this  good 
work  with  his  family,  without  experiencing  an 
internal  sense  of  security  that  invigorates  his 
hopes  and  cheers  his  prospects;  his  house  seems 


PRAYER.  19 

■ 

more  his  castle ;  and  an  invisible  guard  encamps 
about  his  bed. 

Prayer  flourishes  and  grows  in  beauty  like  a 
flower  in  a  state  of  domestic  culture.  It  lias  a 
small  beginning,  but  a  bright  consummation : 
it  is  cradled  in  the  clod,  but  crowned  in  the  sun- 
beam. To  accomplish  it  well,  we  have  often 
to  begin  it  ill,  that  is,  as  we  can,  in  the  midst  of 
retardments  and  avocations;  if  not  holily,  yet 
humbly ;  if  not  with  the  unction  of  divine  grace, 
at  least  with  a  full  feeling  of  human  depravity : 
if  not  with  assurance  of  success,  at  least  with 
the  conviction  of  need;  finding  the  strongest 
motive  to  prayer  in  the  weakness  of  our  efforts 
to  pray.  Prayer  thrives  with  repetition.  All 
can  try;  all  can  ask;  all  can  kneel;  and  most 
idle  and  dangerous  it  is  to  trust  to  anticipating 
grace,  or  to  wait  in  expectation  of  gratuitous 
mercy,  without  putting  forth  such  natural  strength 
as  we  possess,  in  confessing  inability  and  im- 
ploring succour.  The  holy  will,  the  sanctified 
wish,  the  steady  purpose,  are  of  the  free  bounty 
of  God  to  impart ;  but  to  do  the  act  of  prayer 
with  humble  endeavour ;  to  do  it  with  exem- 
plary frequency;  to  avow  a  sinner's  concern  Tor 
his  soul,  and  to  supplicate  forgiveness,  are  simple 
doings  within  the  competency  of  miserable  flesh ; 
duties  which  humanity  is  a  debtor  to  perform, 


20  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

• 

and  from  which  beginnings  we  may  mount  on 
the  promises  of  Scripture  to  that  high  and 
"  holy  hill,"  where  our  Maker  will  shed  the 
dew  of  his  blessings  on  all  sincere  suppliants. 

In  the  exhibition  of  domestic  worship  the 
Christian  head  ot  a  family  has  a  charge  of  great 
importance,  and  a  task  which  calls  for  discretion. 
His  primary  object  should  be,  as  I  reason  from 
personal  experience,  to  keep  his  own  mind  in  an 
honest  state,  really  occupied  with  that  in  which 
he  professes  to  be  engaged.  In  the  style  of  our 
prayers,  public  and  private,  our  language  is 
usually  suited  to  the  urgency  and  solemnity  of 
their  objects ;  but  often,  while  the  lips  are  im- 
portunate, the  heart  is  cold  and  unconscious ; 
while  the  organs  are  busy,  the  thoughts  are 
rambling  over  the  fields  of  illusory  hope  and 
turbid  anxiety.  To  keep  the  thoughts  at  home, 
and  the  sympathies  alert;  to  sustain  in  the  little 
circle  assembled  around  him,  an  attention  to  the 
thing  they  are  doing  and  the  Majesty  they  are 
addressing,  is  the  difficult  task  of  the  domestic 
officiator.  Prayer  should,  on  these  considera- 
tions, have  the  precedence  in  the  day's  arrange- 
ments. The  sacred  duty  should  open  freshly 
with  the  dawn,  and  drink  in  the  dewy  ray  of  the 
morning ;  it  should  meet  the  orient  sun  when 
he  comes  as  a  bridegroom  out  of  his  chamber, 


PRAYER.  21 

to  refresh  all  things  (and  why  not  man's  heart?) 
with  new  life  and  motion.  Every  day  opens  a 
scene  of  cares  which  surcharge  and  secularize 
the  soul ;  so  that,  if  the  daily  duties  or  pleasures, 
or  even  the  first  meal  is  begun  before  prayer, 
God  takes  only  a  share  with  the  idols  of  the 
world  in  the  mixed  service  of  the  heart. 

The  great  effort  of  the  Christian  master  of  a 
family  should  be,  to  bring  his  little  congregation 
together  with  minds  so  far  vacant  from  business 
and  other  disturbing  influences,  as  to  be  the 
proper  recipients  of  scriptural  impressions,  and 
sufficiently  disencumbered  for  spiritual  exercise. 

To  preface  prayer  with  a  chapter  of  the  Bible, 
or  a  psalm,  judiciously  selected,  is  much  to  be 
recommended,  as  the  mind  is  thereby  settled 
into  a  frame  suited  to  the  office  which  is  to  fol- 
low, of  addressing  the  Divine  Majesty  through 
the  Saviour ;  which  is,  of  course,  a  duty  to  be 
performed  on  the  knees ;  but  which,  for  its  vital 
quality,  must  depend,  in  no  small  measure,  upon 
the  devout  carriage  of  him  who,  as  the  priest  of 
the  family,  impresses  his  own  character  upon 
the  performance. 

As  to  the  time  to  be  allotted  to  the  service, 
reason  and  prudence  demand  that  it  should  be 
restricted  within  the  compass  imposed  by  the 
necessary  and  daily  avocations  of  the  members 


22  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

of  the  family,  and  prescribed,  in  part,  perhaps* 
by  the  infirmities  of  our  frail  bodies,  which 
render  it  difficult,  even  for  the  devout,  to  sup- 
port, without  lassitude,  a  state  of  tension  and 
abstraction  beyond  a  moderate  time.  The  ex- 
pense of  mind  is  considerable  in  earnest  prayer ; 
and  far  better  does  it  seem  to  give  to  our  Maker 
an  undivided  homage  for  a  short  period,  than  to 
extend  our  orisons  till  the  weariness  of  the  flesh 
raises  up  a  rival  in  the  very  weakness  of  our 
mortal  nature. 

While  we  are  upon  the  exhibition  of  family 
prayer,  we  may  be  allowed  to  lay  a  stress  upon 
minute  particulars,  as  acquiring  value  from  the 
supreme  worth  of  the  object,  and  conferring 
beauty  and  impressiveness  upon  a  solemnity, 
the  benefit  of  which  depends  so  much  upon  the 
attitude  of  the  soul  in  performing  it,  and  the 
manner  of  its  procedure.  Family  prayer  should 
be  preceded  and  succeeded  by  some  moments 
of  silence.  It  should  have  a  character  of  dis- 
tinction and  separation;  it  should  dissolve  the 
continuity  of  earthly  interests  and  engagements, 
and  elevate  the  thoughts  into  a  higher  element. 
That  confluence  so  apt  to  take  place  between 
the  interests  of  the  different  worlds  should  be 
avoided  as  much  as  may  be:  let  prayer  then 
have  its  proper  and  exclusive  course — its  own 


PRAYER.  23 

deep  bed  and  gentle  current,  bearing  on  its 
bosom  the  commerce  of  mind  with  eternity, 
and  carrying  refreshment  to  those  whose  souls 
are  "  athirst  for  God." 

The  utterance  of  prayer  is  also  a  matter  of 
great  practical  importance.  It  is  not  the  less  a 
rational,  because  it  is  a  spiritual  act :  neither 
inflated  nor  familiar;  neither  rapid  nor  creeping; 
neither  vapouring  nor  hallucinating  ;  neither  de- 
clamatory nor  dull,  it  should  indicate  the  pre- 
dicament of  a  being  in  abject  need  before  the 
throne  of  Omnipotent  Goodness ;  of  a  being, 
however,  who  comes  accredited  by  invitation, 
assured  by  promise,  and  having  a  privilege  of 
access  purchased  for  him  by  blood — the  blood 
of  incarnate  Deity. 

The  prayers  of  our  church  service  are  in 
general  admirably  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the 
soul  and  body ;  and  there  are  few  of  them  that 
may  not  by  slight  additions,  omissions,  and 
alterations,  be  rendered  sufficiently  pointed  and 
appropriate  to  suit  the  temporary  and  accidental 
circumstances  of  every  family.  They  have, 
besides,  the  advantage  of  being  familiar  to  the 
hearers,  and  consequently  of  being  easily  fol- 
lowed and  participated  by  those  in  attendance. 
But  a  prayer  selected  from  a  spiritual  collection 
is  sometimes  more  profitably  impressive,  not 


'24  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

only  from  its  infrequency  and  freshness,  but 
from  a  certain  character  of  affinity  which  it  holds 
with  present  feelings  and  things.  They  give  a 
sort  of  spiritual  poignancy  to  what  might  other- 
wise lose  somewhat  of  its  awakening  influence 
by  repetition ;  they  open,  as  it  were,  fresh 
avenues  of  persuasion,  captivate  by  a  gentle 
surprise,  and  besiege  the  heart  with  a  new  and 
effectual  artillery. 

But  among  the  unauthorized  forms  of  family 
prayer,  it  will  be  prudent  in  the  main  to  trust 
only  to  those  which  adhere  to  the  phraseology 
of  Scripture.  Modern  refinement  is  disposed 
to  cast  disreputation  on  the  use  of  biblical  terms 
and  phrases,  either  in  prayer  or  religious  con- 
versation ;  and  it  is  possible,  no  doubt,  too  pro- 
fusely to  adopt  and  too  familiarly  to  apply  the 
language  of  Scripture ;  it  is  possible  to  merge 
intelligence  in  technicality,  and  to  give  to  re- 
ligious intercourse  the  mystery  of  a  craft ;  but 
so  long  as  we  are  clear  of  excess  and  abuse, 
consecrated  expressions  are  safest.  To  the  im- 
port of  these  phrases  the  most  unlettered  student 
of  the  Bible  has  attained,  and  it  must  be  the 
earnest  wish  of  the  devout  leader  of  the  family 
worship  to  be  understood  and  followed  by  the 
humblest  and  simplest  of  his  domestic  auditory. 

With  respect  to  the  attendance  on  this  great 


PRAYER.  25 

family  transaction,  I  doubt  not  that  every  good 
householder  and  amiable  Christian  must  desire 
to  make  the  circle  as  wide  as  convenience  and 
opportunity  will  permit ;  for  prayer  is  that  trans- 
action in  which  all  have  an  equal  concern. 
Nothing  is  so  social,  because  nothing  is  of  such 
common  interest :  it  is  the  right  of  all,  but  it  is 
the  privilege  of  the  poor.  The  servants,  there- 
fore, within  the  house  should  be  expected,  and 
the  servants  out  of  the  house,  whether  their 
service  be  occasional  or  constant,  should  be 
invited  to  attend.  It  is  not  a  complete  congre- 
gation without  them.  When  accompanied  by 
them,  we  are  united  in  a  common  bond  of 
spiritual  equality,  courtesy,  and  charity,  without 
the  smallest  disturbance  of  the  principle  of  sub- 
ordination by  which  society  is  organized  and 
sustained. 

Blessed  equality  !  Not  that  contentious  sort 
to  which  the  murmurs  of  the  envious,  or  the 
arts  of  the  ambitious  are  directed ;  not  the 
colourless  confusion  of  natural  disparities  or 
politic  distinctions,  but  an  equality  grounded 
on  the  feeling  of  our  measureless  distance  from 
the  centre  of  all  true  greatness  ;  on  the  experi- 
ence and  recognition  of  our  common  nature  and 
need  of  support ;  on  our  comparative  nothing- 
nees  and  conscious  depravity ;  on  our  partner* 
3* 


26  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

ship  in  the  promises  of  the  Gospel ;  our  joint 
inheritance  of  pardoning  grace,  our  identity  of 
interest  in  the  death  of  the  Redeemer,  our  equal 
dependence  on  the  power  of  the  Intercessor. 

Blessed  courtesy  !  Not  that  ambiguous  and 
calculating  sort  which  purchases  homage  by 
condescension,  and  barters  smiles  for  applause, 
but  such  as  a  Christian  gentleman  acknowledges 
to  be  due  to  those  who  minister  to  his  comforts, 
and  are  the  essential  parts  of  his  family,  whose 
situation  consigns  them  to  an  atmosphere  of 
dense  ignorance,  where  intelligence  is  merged 
in  prejudice,  as  light  is  lost  in  vapour,  and  the 
low  details  of  animal  existence  leave  little  leisure 
from  busy  vacancy  for  profitable  thinking. 

Blessed  charity !  Not  that  promiscuous  and 
indolent  sort  which  blends  the  deserving  and 
undeserving  in  its  degrees  of  universal  amnesty, 
or  which  perpetuates  suffering  by  injudicious 
bounty,  scattering  rather  than  distributing ;  but 
that  right  and  rational  principle  which  conbiders 
spiritual  comfort  and  Christian  communion  as 
the  heritage  and  birth-right  of  man  in  every 
station ;  which  delights  in  the  fellowship  of 
prayer,  in  the  extension  of  Gospel  privileges,  in 
the  increase  of  petitioners  before  the  throne  of 
mercy,  anl  in  peopling  and  crowding  the  great 
scene  and  area  of  «race,  mercv,  and  thanks- 


PRAYER.  27 

giving.     Courtesy  and  charity  thus  scrip- 
turally  understood,  resting  on  an  eojjality 
thus   spiritually  acknowledged,   harmonize  all 
diversities  of  estate  in  the  same  act  of  self- 
abasement.     The  master,  kneeling  before  his 
servant,   is  on  the  same  floor  with  him  as  a 
sinner ;  the  servant,  kneeling  with  his  master,  is 
on  the  same  eminence  with  him  as  a  Christian. 
There  are  those  who  laugh  at  all  this,  as  there 
are  those  in  lunatic  hospitals  who  laugh  at  their 
own  wretchedness ;  but  the  life  of  those  prayer- 
less  buffoons  so  soon  passes  from  madness  to 
sadness,  from  farce  to  tragedy,  that  their  ridicule 
is  only  an  appeal  to  the  compassion  of  the  real 
Christian.   Unawed  by  such  weak  enemies,  and 
without  inquiring  who  laughs  or  who  approves, 
he  prays,  and  still  prays  at  the  accustomed  sea- 
sons with  his  family.     Whatever  may  be  the 
dispositions  or  doubts  of  his  household  or  his 
visitors ;  though  some  may  lounge,  and  some 
refuse  to  listen,  he  will  summon  all  within  his 
gates  to  the  family  altar  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Whether  they  will  hear  or  forbear,  ridicule  or 
respect,  his  practice  varies  not.     Nothing  inter- 
rupts him;  through  good  and  evil  report  his 
righteous  resolution  flows  on  continuously  and 
tranquilly.    Like  the  stream  from  the  sanctuary 
in  the  vision  of  the  prophet,  it  increases  in  depth 


28  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

and  abundance  till  it  issues  in  the  great  and 
wide  receptacle  of  living  waters,  leaving  behind 
it  whatever  drift  or  defilement  may  have  floated 
on  its  surface. 

In  a  good  man's  house  prayer  is  the  product 
of  every  event  of  the  family  out  of  the  ordinary 
course.  A  journey  accomplished;  a  danger 
escaped  ;  a  birth,  a  death,  a  marriage;  every  in- 
fliction, every  blessing,  every  providence,  every 
visitation,  every  instance  in  the  family  history 
in  which  God  has  made  known  his  power  by 
ministering  to  man's  helplessness,  or  the  way- 
ward heart  has  been  recovered  by  his  grace ;  all 
these  vicissitudes  are  subjects  of  commemora- 
tion and  prayer  in  the  house  of  one  who  faith- 
fully follows  up  his  baptismal  dedication  in  a 
consistent  course  of  practical  loyalty  and  devoted 
service.  The  posterns  of  such  a  house  have 
the  sprinkling  of  the  sacrifice,  which  denotes  its 
privileges,  and  preserves  it  from  surrounding 
contagion.  In  such  a  house,  the  secret  is  found 
out  of  combining  seriousness  with  cheerfulness, 
service  with  freedom,  duty  with  delight.  Happy 
home !  where  prayers  are  victorious  over  tears, 
and  trust-  is  too  strong  for  despair ;  where  God 
is  a  daily  guest,  and  his  angels  a  nightly  guard* 


THANKSGIVING.  29 

.SECTION  III. 
THANKSGIVING. 

Prayer,  in  its  general  sense,  includes 
"  thanksgiving."  A  feeling  of  thankfulness  is 
always  present  to  the  mind  of  a  genuine  Chris- 
tian. Thankfulness,  as  a  commutative  sentiment 
between  man  and  man,  is  occasional,  brief,  and 
fugitive ;  but  between  man  and  his  God  it  im- 
plies the  state  and  character  of  the  mind.  So 
sweet  and  so  happy  is  this  frame,  that  to  pray  to 
be  thankful  is  a  most  reasonable  act  of  the 
Christian  worshipper.  To  pray  for  a  thanks- 
giving heart  is  to  pray  for  a  great  distinction  and 
precious  privilege:  for  it  is,  indeed,  "  a  joyful 
and  pleasant  thing  to  be  thankful."  It  is  to  be 
in  a  constant  jubilee  in  those  deep  retreats  of 
the  bosom  where  the  soul  sits  in  sequestered 
communion  with  Goch  This  happy  privilege 
must  come,  however,  in  its  order;  it  must  suc- 
ceed to  various  precursory  attainments.  It  is 
not  of  the  genuine  sort  as  it  displays  itself  upon 
the  surface  of  conversation,  making  a  part  of  the 
expletives  of  religion.  Some  men  have  a  pleasant 
way  of  adverting  to  providential  mercies  that 
may  be  serviceable  in  seasoning  their  remarks ; 
while  by  the  light  and  airy  manner  in  which  the 


30  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

topic  is  touched,  the  imputation  of  over-righte- 
ousness is  tastefully  avoided.  Spiritual  thank- 
fulness is  a  pervasive  principle,  refreshed  from 
the  fountains  of  feeling,  and  living  in  constant 
efflorescence  and  verdure.  It  joins  the  general 
song  of  nature;  and  like  that,  is  perpetual ;  re- 
joicing with  "  the  little  hills,"  and  with  the 
'*  firmament  declaring  his  handy-work." 

It  is  pleasant  to  associate  with  persons  thus 
uniformly  thankful  to  God.     There  is  peace, 
sweet  peace  in  their  borders:  peace  within,  and 
peace  all  around.     No  one  can  witness  it  with- 
out wishing  for  it.  How  then  is  it  to  be  attained  ? 
By  imitation,  by  adoption,  by  assuming  its  lan- 
guage and,  tones  ?     Certainly  not  by  any  such 
compendious  methods.     It  is  among  the  fruits 
of  the  Spirit,  and  belongs  to  the  renewed  and 
sanctified  heart :  it  is  to  be  arrived  at  by  a  pro- 
cess and  by  steps.     To  estimate  the  mercies  of 
Jehovah,  and  to  feel  all  our  grounds  of  thankful- 
ness, we  must  begin  with  duly  "  regarding  the 
power  of  his  wrath."   Our  lost  estate,  our  utter 
helplessness,  our  natural  destitution,  the  exigence 
of  God's  most  holy  law,  the  perfection  and  sym- 
metry of  his  immutable  justice,  the  worm  that 
dieth  never,  and  the  fire  that  for  ever  burns, 
must  all  come  in  vision  to  the  prostrate  soul, 
before  it  can  know  how  properly  to  appreciate 


THANKSGIVING.  31 

what  has  been  done  for  its.  deliverance.  When 
every  particle  of  fancied  desert  is  eradicated,  and 
our  forfeiture  and  danger  stand  fully  revealed  to 
view,  then  comes  the  greatness  of  the  rescue 
with  home  appeal  to  our  bosoms.  All  nature 
then  teems  with  benefits.  God's  hand  is  every 
where  seen:  his  munificence  is  every  where 
felt.  When  the  value  of  his  gifts  is  thus  mea- 
sured by  our  indeserts,  the  very  breath  that  he 
has  given  returns  in  vital  homage.  Our  de- 
merits thus  acknowledged  and  felt,  supply  a  sort 
of  grammar  to  the  language  of  our  petitions  and 
thanksgivings.  They  afford  the  elements,  with- 
out which  we  cannot  express  our  gratitude 
suitably  or  our  wants  effectually. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  the  ears  of  some  to 
talk  of  the  language  of  thanksgiving  as  of  a 
language  to  be  learned ;  but  it  is  in  truth  a  lan- 
guage which  none  speak  correctly  or  fluently 
but  those  who  have  felt  the  deep  conviction  of 
their  own  sinful  estate.  It  is  observable  that 
one  who  feels  this  conviction,  and  one  who  feels 
it  not,  express  their  thanks  in  very  different  dia- 
lects. There  is  even  a  way  of  giving  thanks, 
by  which  the  absence  of  gratitude  may  be  plainly, 
I  had  almost  said  emphatically,  indicated.  Let 
the  mode  in  which  those  whose  gratitude  is  only 
skin  deep  say  grace,  as  it  is  termed,  before  or 


32  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

after  meals,  be  attended  to,  and  the  pertinency 
of  this  observation  may  be  understood  by  ex- 
ample. The  lowest  favour  in  the  scale  of  bene- 
ficence which  man  receives  at  the  hand  of  his 
fellow,  is  acknowledged  by  thanks  more  feel- 
ingly expressed  than  those  which  are  given  to 
God  for  the  daily  sustenance  by  which  we  are 
continued  in  existence,  and  of  which  he  is  the 
author  and  dispenser.  The  reluctant  rising,  the 
stifled  utterance,  the  despatchful  haste,  the  frigid 
levity,  the  heartless  indifference,  the  alacrity  in 
sinking  back  into  the  half-relinquished  seat,  the 
anxiety  to  avoid  the  suspicion  of  being  in  earnest, 
are  all  sure  to  characterize  this  ceremony  when 
performed  by  the  mere  man  of  the  world,  eccle- 
siastic or  laic.  The  bounties  of  the  Great  Giver 
are  to  him  fa%*  afagcc,  giftless  gifts,  and  his  re- 
turns are  thankless  thanks.  Let  the  Christian 
gentleman  well  consider  that  Jehovah  is  insulted 
by  unmeaning  compliment ;  that  his  titles  are 
not  words  of  course ;  and  that  to  mention  him, 
much  more  to  address  him,  without  real  hom- 
age, is  constructively  to  blaspheme. 


POETRY  AND  MUSIC.  33 

SECTION  IV. 

POETRY  AND  MUSIC. 

That  poetry  and  music  may  properly  be 
adopted  into  family  worship  as  the  vehicles  of 
praise  and  thanksgiving  cannot  be  doubted,  when 
the  influence  of  these  arts  on  the  affections  and 
sentiments  is  considered.  The  hymning  voices 
of  children,  gathered  about  their  parents  on  these 
solemn  occasions,  are  beautiful  appendages  to 
prayer.  Our  sacred  literature  is  opulent  in  de- 
votional poetry  ;  and  the  application  of  it  to  the 
expression  of  pious  gratitude  has  the  warrant  of 
high  and  holy  example.  The  Bible  is  replete 
with  poetry  and  song.  The  plan  of  redemption, 
in  all  its  depth,  breadth,  and  altitude;  the  Man 
of  Sorrows,  the  King  of  Glory,  stricken,  pierced, 
exalted;  the  Bridegroom  of  the  Church;  the 
Warrior  of  salvation ;  the  Conqueror  of  the  last 
enemy;  appear  in  their  genuine  colours  and 
characters  in  the  poetry  of  inspiration. 

Wherever  genius  and  piety  join  their  force 
to  raise  our  imagination  and  affections  above 
earthly  things,  the  verse,  though  uninspired,  has 
the  models  of  inspiration  to  guide  and  consecrate 
its  efforts.     If  holy  things  appear  with  less 


84  family  devotion. 

grandeur  through  this  secondary  medium,  it 
presents  them  to  us  under  new  and  familiar  as- 
pects, and  with  a  certain  freshness  and  variety  of 
adaptation.  Its  very  inferiority  touches  us  with 
a  milder  influence,  and  generates  closer  and  more 
soothing  sympathies  of  want,  dependence,  ex- 
pectation, and  trust.  But  sacred  songs  are  sacred 
things,  nor  is  every  muse  to  be  trusted  on  this 
hallowed  ground. 

Cowper  and  Watts,  and  Newton  and  Heber, 
and  others  of  that  class,  may  be  trusted.  They 
are  the  classics  in  this  walk  of  literature :  they 
became  religious  poets  by  first  becoming  religi- 
ous men.  Their  productions  are,  therefore, 
without  affectation ;  piety  was  their  proper  ele- 
ment ;  a  holy  tact,  a  vital  heat,  a  conscious  prin- 
ciple, a  central  feeling,  gave  the  first  impulse  to 
their  exertions,  and  a  character  of  legitimacy  to 
the  results.  But  where  writers  essay  to  try 
their  skill  on  this  topic  for  the  sake  only  of  its 
poetical  resources,  leaving  for  a  season  their 
amatory  themes,  and  all  the  trickery  of  their 
worn-out  pathos,  their  specious  but  spurious 
performances  should  never  find  their  way  into 
the  family  of  the  religious  parent,  under  what- 
ever title  they  announce  themselves,  of  hymns, 
or  serious  melodies,  or  sacred  songs.  From 
Eastern  scenes  of  degrading  pleasure,  from  ex- 


POETRY  AND  MUSIC.  35 

aggerated  descriptions  of  painted  bliss,  from  fas- 
cinating lies  and  medicated  debauchery,  the 
poet  cannot,  at  least  he  gracefully  cannot,  on  the 
sudden,  turn  himself  towards  Sion.  With  the 
feverish  dreams  of  carnal  riot  still  cleaving  to  his 
fancy,  he  cannot  join  harmoniously  with  the  holy 
and  humble  of  heart,  in  hallelujahs  to  Him  who 
"  is  exalted  above  the  heavens,  and  whose  glory 
is  above  the  clouds.'' 

With  respect  to  music  and  poetry  as  aids  to 
piety,  the  Christian  mind  will  readily  acknow- 
ledge and  appreciate  their  influence ;  but  consis- 
tency and  proper  feeling  condemn  the  intermix- 
ture, which  is  sometimes  permitted  in  decorous 
families,  of  profane  with  sacred  melodies.  By 
such  a  combination  the  heart  is  not  merely 
neutralized,  but  mis- directed  and  perverted ;  re- 
ligion is  lowered,  sense  is  exalted ;  a  compromise 
takes  place,  in  which  passion  exults  in  the  mim- 
icry of  devotion.  The  stability  of  right  sentiment 
is  shaken  by  such  quick  transitions  and  contrary 
emotions ;  the  affections  neither  settle  upon  earth 
nor  rise  towards  heaven  :  but  while  the  Creator 
and  his  creatures  are  thus  mixed  in  equal  hom- 
age, the  realities  of  life  are  falsified,  and  the 
quality  of  spiritual  things  debased. 


^6  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 


SECTION  V. 

PREPARATION  FOR  PRAYER. 

After  all,  it  is  impossible  that  the  practice 
of  devotion  can  be  in  a  right  train  in  any  family-, 
when  it  is  not  secured  and  regulated  by  sound 
instruction.  "  If  any  man  teach  otherwise,  and 
consent  not  to  wholesome  words,  even  the  words 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  the  doctrine 
which  is  according  to  godliness,  he  is  proud, 
knowing  nothing."  The  right  apprehension  of 
our  predicament  under  the  Gospel,  is  the  ground 
of  all  real  devotion  and  unctional  prayer.  That 
we  are  delinquents  before  God;  that  divine 
justice  is  perfect,  and  therefore  incapable  of 
falling  short  of  its  accomplishment ;  that  it  must 
have  satisfaction ;  that  to  give  scope  to  his  mercy, 
without  impairing  his  justice,  was  an  achieve- 
ment only  within  the  compass  of  his  own  wis- 
dom ;  that  to  reconcile  these  attributes  in  their 
application  to  man,  it  seemed  good  to  the 
supreme  Arbiter  of  all  things  to  make  the  stu- 
pendous sacrifice  recorded  in  the  Gospel :  these 
are  the  views  of  our  humanity  in  its  relation  to 
God,  which  bring  us  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
only  medium  by  which  prayer  can  ascend  to 


PREPARATION  FOR  PRAYER.  37 

the  throne  of  mercy.  Deep  and  penitent  con- 
viction of  sin,  faith  and  hope  in  the  great  sacri- 
fice, and  consequent  love  and  obedience,  make 
up  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  Christian's 
state  and  profession :  they  are  the  stamina  of 
vital  prayer. 

Prayer  delights  in  a  cordial   intimacy  with 
divine  truth ;  it  ventures  beyond  that  ceremonial 
barrier,  where  so  many  rest  in  an  unholy  self- 
satisfaction.     It  is  but  half  alive  in  the  cold  so- 
journ about  the  precincts  of  Christianity ;  it  is 
only  within  its  comfortable  interior  that  it  is  in 
vigour  and  vivacity.     From  its  evidences,  its 
formalities,  and  its  moralities,  prayer,  importu- 
nate prayer  presses  on  to  the  inner  circle  of  grace 
and  mercy,  of  pardon  and  sanctifi cation.    What 
the  man  of  prayer  wants,  is  to  come  so  near  the 
seraphic  centre  as  to  catch  the  cheering  glimpse 
of  God's  infinite  plan  of  reconciliation,  its  mys- 
terious operation,  its  mighty  work  of  love,  its 
singularity  of  contrivance,  its  specific  holiness. 
These  are  the  characteristics  of  divine  truth, 
which  the  man  of  prayer  must  incorporate  in  his 
petitions,  or  he  does  not  pray  to  Christianity's 
God.     If  he  prays  not  through  the  great  Pro- 
pitiator and  Intercessor,  he  prays  to  an  unknown 
god,  to  the  phantom  of  a  vain  imagination,  or 
Xo  the  spectre  of  a  terrified  conscience.    Never. 
4* 


38  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

for  a  moment,  can  the  Christian,  with  safety, 
depart  in  his  devotional  exercises  from  the  great 
lines  of  Gospel  divinity.     The  holy  exigence 
of  the  divine  law,  the  d(  solation  of  a  criminal 
world,  the  prevailing  virtue  of  a  vicarious  atone- 
ment, in  opening  a  new  access  to  God,  these 
teach  us   how  to  pray  ;   the  riches  of  divine 
mercy,  the  renewing  power  of  divine  grace,  the 
privileges  of  the  divine  communion,   and  the 
promises  of  the  divine  covenant,  these  teach  us 
for  what  to  pray  ;  but  these  are  not  to  the  taste 
of  an  unspiritual  nature  :    the  intellect  refuses 
the  yoke  of  these  disparaging  thoughts,  proud 
morality  prefers  a  claim  to  what  is  freely  prof- 
fered to  conscious  indesert.    Man,  the  relick  of 
a  ruined  world  ;  man,  under  sentence  from  the 
decree  of  infallible  justice,  claims  to  judge  him- 
self and  others  by  his  own  variable  and  vicious 
standard.  With  the  collar  and  decorations  which 
beiong  tov  the  fraternity  of  the  good,  so  called 
upon  earth,  he  challenges  an  equal  distinction 
in  heaven.     He  strengthens  himself  in  a  corpo- 
rate resistance  of  opinion  to  the  humbling  de- 
crees of  Omnipotence.   Our  unhappy  propensity 
to  weigh  our  own  actions  without  regard  to  the 
balance  of  the  sanctuary,  extends  itself  through 
every  grade  of  social  life;   its  rank  luxuriance 
i;asts  an  unholy  shade  between  man  and  his 


PREPARATION  FOR  PRAYER.  39 

Maker,  deeper  indeed  and  darker  as  moral 
character  descends,  but  more  or  less  hiding 
from  some  of  the  best  and  wisest,  the  pure 
irradiations  of  divine  goodness. 

The  great  end  and  aim  of  the  pious  father 
should  be,  to  set  up  the  standard  of  religion  in 
his  family,  for  each  to  measure  thereby  the 
worth  of  his  own  attainments.  I  say  of  the 
father,  not  only  because  the  mother  is  rarely 
opposed  to  such  a  scheme,  but  because  it  is  the 
peculiar  work  of  the  father  to  settle  the  principle 
of  family  government.  All  rule  is  at  an  end, 
where  the  individuals  of  a  family  are  admitted 
to  justify  themselves  by  a  comparison  with 
others.  From  such  a  licence,  nothing  but  con- 
fusion can  result — a  fatal  and  lying  security. 
The  treacherous  privilege  speaks  peace,  where 
there  can  be  no  peace,  and  reconciles  man  to 
his  ruin:  the  very  outcasts  can  build  upon  it 
a  title  to  reward.  It  sets  up  a  scale  of  value 
where  no  value  is,  and  fabricates  the  forms  and 
images  of  goodness  out  of  the  quarry  of  our 
corrupted  nature. 

Where  men  thus  take  into  their  own  hands 
the  adjustment  of  their  claims  to  pardon  or 
reward,  prayer  is  inappropriate  and  out  of  place. 
The  first  business,  therefore,  of  him  who  wishes 
to  have  a  praying  family  around  him,  should 


40  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

be  to  destroy  this  error  at  its  root ;  and,  if  pos- 
sible, by  directing  the  views  of  his  children  and 
domestics  to  the  perfection  of  the  divine  law, 
to  convince  them  of  their  lost  estate,  and  their 
incapacity  of  self-restoration. 

This  conviction  places  the  soul  between  grace 
and  despair.  It  turns  it  to  the  one  only  practi- 
cable method  of  reconciliation ;  darkness  may 
intervene,  but  the  shadows  gradually  retire,  to 
make  way  for  a  scene  in  which  every  thing  lies 
disposed  in  a  new  order ;  a  moral  constitution, 
in  which  the  decrees  of  this  lower  judicature 
appear  reversed.  All  that  has  so  long  intercepted 
the  divine  glory — the  shrines  and  monuments  of 
earthly  homage  and  consecrated  delusion  are 
swept  away,  and  in  their  place,  the  "  holy 
mountain  where  God  has  made  himself  an 
everlasting  name,"  "  the  treasures  of  darkness," 
and  "  a  day  for  the  ransomed,"  all  burst  upon 
the  view. 

This  right  estimation  of  ourselves  is  at  the 
bottom  of  all  religious  discipline  and  saving 
knowledge.  We  cannot  love  God  until  we 
know  what  he  has  done  for  us,  and  we  cannot 
know  what  he  has  done  for  us  until  we  know 
what  we  are,  and  what  we  have  forfeited.  It 
is  thus  that  faith  lays  the  foundation  of  love,  . 
When  we  see  the  Deity  only  in  his  power  and 


PREPARATION  FOR  PRAYER.  41 

holiness,  and  clothed  in  majesty  and  honour, 
the  terrors  of  his  righteous  anger  overwhelm  us, 
and  fear  casteth  out  love — the  fear  of  the  Judge 
and  Castigator.  But  when  we  see  the  door  of 
heaven  opened,  and  the  stupendous  miracle  of 
his  mercy  administering  to  his  justice  by  a 
sacrifice  as  costly  as  even  that  justice  could 
exact,  and  ponder  that  act  of  unutterable  tender- 
ness by  which  our  ransom  has  been  effected, 
love  finds  its  argument  in  our  nature,  in  so  far 
at  least  as  gratitude  is  a  part  of  our  nature.  By 
this  process,  and  to  this  extent,  we  may  proceed 
somewhat  in  the  work  of  spiritual  improvement, 
and  render  ourselves,  so  to  speak,  more  genial 
recipients  of  divine  grace.  But  the  love  that 
casteth  out  fear,  that  re-acts  upon  our  faith,  and 
gives  us  peace  in  believing,  is  the  proper  con- 
quest of  prayer,  and  the  gift  only  of  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

But  it  is  of  main  importance  to  know  and  to 
feel,  that  the  faith  which  is  evidenced  by  love 
is  not  a  single  act,  or  a  principle  that  stays  at  a 
point ;  it  retrogrades  when  it  does  not  advance ; 
it  must  be  sustained  as  our  worldly  friendships 
are  sustained,  by  keeping  the  benefits  and  kind- 
nesses which  first  created  it  alive  in  the  memory 
and  the  heart,  by  frequent  recurrences  of  thought 
and  meditation. 


42  FAMILY  DEVOTION. 

Man  is  never  safe  out  of  the  bounds  of  ex- 
press Scripture.  There  is  a  spurious  religion 
which  assumes  these  titles  of  love,  and  of  which 
we  should  say  to  the  Christian  householder, 
Give  it  no  hospitality,  nor  let  it  domicile  with 
thee  a  day.  It  smiles  and  flatters  to  betray. 
Reject  its  fabulous  and  facile  deity,  nor  trust 
his  gratuitous  pity  and  unpurchased  pardon.  It 
proposes  to  us  a  will- worship  of  sentiment, 
pathos,  and  emotion,  without  seal  or  authority, 
or  statute  or  ordinance.  It  settles  the  balance 
of  divine  justice  and  mercy,  by  abridging  each 
of  its  perfection.  "  But  thou  continuest  hoty, 
O  thou  Worship  of  Israel ;"  while  thy  crea- 
tures pretend  to  lower  the  requisitions  of  thy 
law  to  their  own  standard  of  goodness,  and  to 
contract  to  their  own  proportions  the  measureless 
dimensions  of  thy  godhead. 


THE  GERMAN  SCHOOL.  43 

SECTION  VI. 

UNSCRIPTURAL  RELIGION. 

These  framers  of  their  own  religion  will  not 
receive  Christianity  as  a  system  of  positive 
enunciation — as  the  statute  law  of  God.  They 
must  have  a  religion  made  in  consultation  with 
the  moral  dictates  of  right  reason ;  or  if  given 
us  by  God  only,  still  by  God  borrowing  the 
suggestions  of  human  counsel.  I  should  say 
to  the  spirits  of  these  inquiring  times,  Come 
manfully  to  this  contest  with  Scripture :  prove 
it  false ;  but  do  not,  in  place  of  its  positive 
declarations,  affect  to  build  upon  it  a  structure 
"  daubed  with  untempered  mortar,"  and  which 
can  have  no  foundation  but  the  corrupt  sugges- 
tions of  a  wandering  fancy  and  a  misguided 
will.  What  does  the  philosophy  of  these  times 
give  us  in  the  place  of  the  letter  of  scriptural 
religion?  Observe  it  in  the  German  school, 
unfolding  itself  in  all  its  vagueness  and  vanity. 
Instead  of  the  grace  of  God  and  his  teaching 
Spirit,  it  proposes  to  us,  in  the  words  of  one 
of  their  liveliest  interpreters,  the  "  poesie  de 
Fame ;"  an  internal  life,  which  the  privileged 
only  live;   an  inner  apartment  in  the  bosom, 


44  UNSCRIPTURAL  RELIGION. 

"  sanctos  recessus  mentis,"  where  the  spirits 
enjoy  a  constant  feast,  and  dance  to  a  music  of 
their  own. 

The  religion  of  revelation  tells  us  that  the 
heart  is  deceitful  above  all  things,  and  desper- 
ately wicked;  but  the  theology  of  this  school 
talks  to  us  of  the  religion  of  the  heart — of  this 
same  heart  so  low  in  scriptural  repute.  In  the 
place  to  which  revelation  points  as  the  seat  of 
corruption,  philosophy  has  enshrined  her  oracles. 

Admire  as  we  will  these  soldiers  of  the  parade, 
the  plume,  and  the  fluttering'  field-day,  they 
belong  not  to  the  militant  church,  nor  are  to 
be  classed  among  those  violent  ones  that  take 
heaven  by  storm.  We  cannot  trust  their  pio- 
neers for  the  route  to  that  place  where  the 
Supreme  sits  intrenched  in  his  holiness ;  where 
the  flaming  sword  of  his  justice  turns  every 
way  but  one — the  one  only  way  of  access.  Let 
not  the  Christian  householder  join  in  the  march 
of  this  philosophy.  The  Christianity  which  it 
proposes  is  a  Christianity  without  Christ.  It  is 
an  unsanctified  system  of  maxims,  seemingly 
of  a  very  social  aspect,  but  in  truth  nothing  but 
the  phantasy  of  inflated  feeling ;  a  creed  of  im- 
pressions, requiring  its  votaries  to  believe  mys- 
teries without  meaning  and  without  authority. 
Let  him  be  aware  of  those  German  apostles, 


THE  GERMAN  SCHOOL.  45 

and  this  ideal  world  of  abstractions.  Let  him 
turn  from  the  metaphysics,  the  ethics,  and  the 
poetry  of  these  independent  theologians,  to 
follow  the  Saviour's  footsteps  into  the  press  of 
mortal  misery,  through  scenes  of  actual  conflict 
and  the  realities  of  faith  working  by  love.  They 
may  be  challenged  to  show  in  our  nature  those 
deep-seated  principles  to  which  we  are  referred 
— that  inborn  purity,  or  that  silent  suffrage  of 
the  heart  in  unison  with  the  voice  of  heaven. 
It  is  in  the  power  of  education  to  educe  religion 
from  our  nature,  just  as  much  as  it  is  in  the 
power  of  philosophy  to  bring  the  sunbeams  out 
of  cucumbers. 

The  maxims  of  these  metaphysical  moralists 
are  in  nothing  more  defective  than  in  that  for 
which  they  take  to  themselves  the  greatest  credit 
— systematic  reasoning.  They  picture  to  them- 
selves an  interior  nature  in  the  constitution  of 
things  that  prompts  and  determines  the  soul  to 
what  is  virtuous  and  pure,  while  yet  the  vanity 
and  misery  of  human  life  are  the  favourite  themes 
of  their  declamation.  According  to  them,  it  is 
to  the  perverse  dispositions  of  artificial  society, 
and  the  want  of  a  right  education,  that  the  fre- 
quent interruptions,  or  rather  the  general  disap- 
pointment of  these  natural  tendencies  towards 
moral  perfection  is  to  be  attributed.  According 
5 


4(5  UNSCRIPTURAL  RELIGION. 

to  them,  the  work  of  man's  perfectibility  is  in 
his  own  hands :  he  has  the  materials  and  means 
within  himself  of  his  own  spiritual  exaltation  ; 
whether  it  be  destiny  or  divinity,  or  what  else 
they  say  not ;  but  a  seminal  something  inherent 
in  our  nature,  waiting  only  to  be  developed  by 
human  cultivation. 

In  some  of  the  expositions  of  Pestalozzi's 
system  of  education,  amidst  much  good,  is 
found  much  of  the  quackery  and  cabalism  of 
these  German  ethics.  It  is  one  of  the  vehicles 
for  the  nostrums  of  that  empyrical  shop,  whose 
opiates  make  our  heads  swim  with  the  dignity 
of  human  nature.  In  what  recess  of  the  mind 
the  new  philosophy  has  found  the  "  vie  interi- 
eure,"  the  "  sens  interieur,"  and  the  comfortable 
truth  "  que  Phomme  est  bon  par  nature,"  he 
only  can  tell  who  is  able  to  follow  these  sage 
explorers  of  our  moral  constitution  in  their  de- 
velopment of  these  "  primitive  dispositions." 
They  have  sunk  their  shafts  too  low  for  ordinary 
intellect  to  venture :  they  are  to  be  distrusted 
as  much  as  the  other  mining  speculations  of  the 
day.  Unable,  even  with  the  help  of  these 
gentlemen,  to  settle  whether  "  on  fait  le  bien 
par  instinct  ou  par  besoin,"  we  turn  to  the 
humbling  doctrines  of  the  faith  of  our  ancestors., 
and  make  the  best  of  our  way  out  of  the  circuit 


THE  GERMAN  SCHOOL.  47 

of  an  enthusiastic  morality,  within  which  every 
sciolist  may  take  his  seat  and  deliver  his  lectures. 
Turning  a  deaf  ear  to  this  authoritative  an- 
nouncement of  the  dignity  of  our  nature,  this 
vocation  to  the  proper  use  of  our  constitutional 
resources  and  native  capacities,  let  us  repair  to 
that  Gospel  which,  while  it  places  before  us  our 
own  pravity  and  perversity,  gives  usa  "  com- 
mandment which  is  exceeding  broad,"  and 
offers  "  a  lantern  to  our  feet  and  a  light  to  our 
paths." 

It  is  to  be  lamented  that  Madame  de  Stael 
has  afforded  the  aid  of  her  powerful  and  pre- 
vailing talents  towards  exalting  an  unmeaning 
enthusiasm  into  the  place  of  religion ;  an  en- 
thusiasm which,  however  pure  in  its  elements, 
terminates  by  a  natural  proclivity  of  the  heart  in 
sentimental  profligacy.  The  consequence  of  this 
enthusiasm  has,  of  late  years,  much  increased 
throughout  the  moral  and  intellectual  world. 
Whence  this  principle,  so  specious  and  so  false, 
may  have  derived  its  birth  it  would  be  tedious 
to  inquire ;  but  we  may  affirm  that  in  Germany 
it  has  been  most  active  and  influencing.  It  has 
grown  with  the  literature  of  that  country,  which 
has  been  remarkably  adapted  to  give  it  operation 
and  expansion  ; — that  people  had  advanced  far 
in  their  intellectual  career,  before  they  could  be 


48  UNSCRIPTURAL  RELIGION. 

said  to  possess  a  iiterature  of  their  own,  A 
strong  determination  of  the  intellect  towards 
philosophy,  and  particularly  the  abstract  and 
metaphysical,  was  always  a  distinguishing  fea- 
ture of  their  character.  An  infant  literature  is 
very  impressible ;  and  when  poetry  and  polite 
learning  began  in  Germany  to  be  the  objects 
of  home  cultivation,  they  were  mixed  with  the 
refinements  of  a  philosophy  which  had  become 
mistress  of  the  mind  of  this  ardent  people.  A 
wilderness  of  anomalous  thoughts  and  roving 
fancies  caught  and  fixed  in  wonder  the  first 
glances  of  their  infant  poesy.  And  the  most 
impassioned  species  of  composition,  the  drama, 
soon  reflected  the  taste  of  the  nation  in  scenes 
of  moral  extravagance,  mystical  invention,  un- 
disciplined impulses,  and  all  the  intricacies  and 
excesses  of  sentimental  sensuality. 

Thus  Germany,  if  not  the  source,  has  been 
the  great  patron  and  promulgator  of  an  order  of 
ideas,  loosened  and  at  large  from  the  control  of 
testimony  and  authority,  and  only  to  be  called 
an  order  or  class,  as  meeting,  under  all  their 
varieties,  in  the  one  common  and  fatal  folly  of 
looking  within  ourselves,  and  into  the  constitu- 
tion of  things,  for  the  principles  of  our  belief  and 
practice.  Sentiment,  detached  from  its  proper 
basis,  has  become  a  servile  minister  of  the  pas- 


THE  GERMAN  SCHOOL.  49 

si&ns,  giving  a  deceptious  interest  to  the  mis- 
chievous aberrations  of  the  heart  and  the  pro- 
pensities of  mere  animal  nature.  Nothing  better 
than  this  unhallowed  product  can  come  of  an 
education,  of  which  real  scriptural  religion  does 
not  constitute  the  prevailing  ingredient ;  no  sys- 
tem of  education  can  prosper  which  leaves  out 
that  which  is  the  great  and  proper  business  of 
man.  A  principle  of  culture  is  proposed  to  us 
which  has  no  reference  to  the  end  for  which  we 
were  born :  its  maxims  and  dogmas  are  flux 
and  evanescent,  like  the  particles,  whatever  they 
are,  which  carry  abroad  the  virus  of  disease. 
Down  from  the  lofty,  but  unsound  reveries  of 
Madame  de  Stael,  through  all  the  deepening 
grades  of  German  story,  domestic  or  dramatic, 
to  the  pestilent  pen  of  that  unhappy  lord,  whose 
genius  has  thrown  lasting  reproach  upon  the 
literature  of  his  country ;  through  every  disguise 
and  everv  modification,  the  lurking  disease 
betrays  itself,  amidst  paint  and  perfumes,  by 
the  invincible  scent  of  its  native  quarry. 


!Z* 


50  THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOFHl 


SECTION  VII. 

THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

So  much  for  the  religion  of  the  heart,  and  the 
metaphysics  of  sentiment,  of  which  the  principal 
doctors  are  of  the  German  school,  from  which 
our  Christian  householder  should  be  warned  to 
insulate  his  family.  But  it  is  the  fate  of  religion 
to  be  placed  in  the  midst  of  dangers.  She  is 
only  safe  in  her  own  element — humility ;  out  of 
this  peaceful  harbour  she  becomes  the  sport  of 
winds.  She  is  in  danger  on  the  side  of  abstraction ; 
she  is  in  danger  on  the  side  of  induction.  At 
the  present  time,  and  in  our  own  country,  she  is 
in  some  danger  from  the  progress  of  the  physical 
sciences,  and  a  strong  determination  towards 
inquiries,  experimental  and  material.  The  ideal 
philosophy,  it  is  true,  is  well  exchanged  for  a 
more  substantial  and  experimental  course  of 
inquiry;  but  scepticism  may  germinate  upon 
either  of  these  stocks.  Contraries  are  seldom 
good  correctives  of  each  other ;  they  are  apt  to 
coalesce  in  a  common  extravagance :  they  may 
be  "  reconciled  in  ruin."  We  have  reason  to 
be  afraid  of  a  mechanical  philosophy  pushed  to 
excess,  as  it  now  seems  to  be  by  some  of  our 


THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY.  51 

leading  men  of  the  present  time;  and  as  it 
assuredly  was  by  most  of  the  leading  men  of  the 
revolutionary  times,  which  have  hardly  gone 
by  in  a  neighbouring  country.  The  French 
physiologists  have  exported  to  this  country  their 
fashions  of  thinking  and  disputing.  An  exclusive 
contemplation  of  physical  causes,  an  over-reliance 
on  experimental  deduction,  a  depreciation  of 
moral  evidence,  an  abusive  extension  of  Lord 
Bacon's  principles,  a  study  of  nature  that  leaves 
out  nature's  God,  appears  to  characterize  too 
strongly  the  course  of  study  to  which  the  general 
mind  is  at  present  industriously  directed  and 
impelled.  The  "  march  of  intellect"  is  a  stun- 
ning phrase,  that  hardly  permits  the  voice  of 
pious  foreboding  to  be  heard.  A  study  and 
instruction  which  terminate  in  extending  our 
acquaintance  with  the  capacities  and  properties 
of  matter,  and  find  their  principal  inducement 
and  reward  in  the  increase  of  corporeal  gratifica- 
tion, or  which,  at  least,  are  entirely  terrestrial 
and  temporary  in  their  objects,  do  not  only  not 
lead  to  the  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished 
by  every  true  patriot  and  lover  of  the  soul,  but 
afford  a  very  dubious  pledge  and  promise  of  real 
intellectual  advancement  among  the  mass  of  our 
population.  If  the  value  of  mental  attainments 
is  to  be  estimated  with  reference  to  their  proper 


52  THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY, 

end  and  purpose,  the  knowledge  of  Scripture 
divinity,  and  of  the  duties  which  flow  from  that 
knowledge,  are  surely  to  be  preferred  to  a  pro- 
ficiency in  sciences,  which  only  prqpose  to  lay 
nature  more  widely  under  contribution  to  sense 
and  appetite.  By  which  observations  it  is  far 
from  being  intended  to  treat  with  disrespect  in- 
quiries into  nature's  operations,  but  to  insist  upon 
the  danger  of  giving  them  an  engrossing  in- 
fluence, to  the  exclusion  of  better  things.  Take 
two  persons  of  ordinary  average  capacity  from 
the  humbler  path  of  life ;  put  the  one  under  the 
exclusive  process  of  instruction  in  physical  phi- 
losophy, according  to  the  improved  modern 
method  of  accelerating  knowledge  among  what 
are  called  the  operative  classes ;  and  let  the  other 
be  taught  from  the  Bible  to  judge  of  himself, 
in  his  relations  to  God  and  his  fellows ;  let  him 
be  taught  duly  to  feel  the  worth  of  his  soul,  the 
extent  of  his  accountability,  his  natural  corrup- 
tion, and  the  true  spiritual  grounds  of  his  hope 
and  trust ;  and  let  this  be  all  he  learns,  or,  at 
least,  his  great  and  engrossing  study,  and  it  will 
be  soon  manifested  which  of  these  two  persons, 
by  the  enlargement  of  his  understanding  and  the 
general  invigoration  of  his  reasoning  powers, 
reflects  the  greater  credit  on  the  means  taken  to 
improve  him — in  a  word,  which  turns  out  the 


THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY.  53 

more  sensible  man,  in  the  general  and  popular 
view  of  that  character. 

The  subject  is  not  an  agreeable  one.  It  is 
painful  to  stand  in  opposition  to  any  scheme 
ostensibly  formed  for  the  promotion  of  general 
intelligence ;  but  still,  in  delineating  the  charac- 
teristics of  any  of  the  great  operations  now  in 
action  for  the  improvement  of  our  fellow-beings, 
it  is  difficult  to  avoid  dwelling  a  little  longer 
upon  certain  tendencies,  which  naturally  arise 
out  of  arrangements  as  captivating  in  their  sound 
as  they  are  comprehensive  in  their  consequences. 
As  in  the  natural  body,  particular  determinations, 
strong  impulses,  and  a  partial  distribution  of 
organic  action,  are  the  occasions  of  disease ;  so 
in  the  social  system  certain  morbid  phenomena 
indicate  the  presence  of  disturbing  influences, 
and  a  disproportionate  direction  of  its  energies. 
Society  seems  to  shake  either  with  fever  or  fear, 
while  the  whole  faculty  are  assembled  about  her 
in  clamorous  consultation,  with  their  formidable 
apparatus  of  laxatives,  alteratives,  and  restora- 
tives, so  as  to  render  it  altogether  doubtful 
whether  she  is  to  die  of  disease  or  the  curative 
process.  Where  matter  is  held  up  as  the  great 
object  and  end  of  inquiry,  and  sense  and  experi- 
ment arrogate  an  ascendency  so  prevailing  as  to 
throw  into  disrepute  all  other  tests  of  truth,  or 


54  THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

guides  to  knowledge,  sober  men  rationally  take 
alarm.  They  cannot,  perhaps,  distinctly  desig- 
nate, or  decisively  demonstrate,  the  danger  which 
they  apprehend  ;  but  they  feel  an  inquietude  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  new  aspect  of  popular 
instruction,  akin  to  that  which  the  expression  of 
certain  countenances  usually  excites.  Something, 
too,  there  is  in  particular  physiognomies  which 
alarm  only  by  their  similitude  to  those  which 
have  been  observed  to  belong  to  certain  authors 
of  mischief  and  misery ;  and  these  are  often  safer 
documents  to  go  upon  than  inferences  grounded 
on  more  legitimate  reasoning. 

From  the  general  tone  of  conversation  and 
style  of  expression  on  this  subject,  it  does  not 
appear  as  if  the  heart  were  the  soil  in  which  the 
seeds  of  these  new  products  were  to  be  sown, 
or  that  truth,  as  it  has  been  revealed  to  us,  were 
to  have  its  ascendency  acknowledged  in  this 
catholic  scheme  of  refinement.  And  yet,  with- 
out this  ascendancy  fully  acknowledged,  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  all  the  teaching  in  the  world 
will  do  any  thing  but  stuff  the  minds  of  the  la- 
bouring classes  with  the  beggarly  refuse  of  athe- 
istical philosophy  and  revolutionary  politics, 
warp  them  out  of  their  proper  places,  propagate 
conceit  and  discontent,  inflame  the  presumptu- 
ousness  of  pride,  and  arm  the  powers  of  male- 


THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY.  55 

volence.  There  is  a  blessed  condition  annexed 
by  divine  promise  to  holy  teaching,  and  to  holy 
teaching  only, — "  all  thy  children  shall  be  taught 
of  the  Lord,  and  great  shall  be  the  peace  of  thy 
children.' ' 

The  expedients  now  in  operation,  or  in  pre- 
paration, may  be  variously  viewed.  To  some 
they  afford  a  subject  of  calculation,  in  what  ratio 
the  brain  may  be  made  productive,  under  a 
given  stimulus ;  others  are  satisfied  with  a  vague 
impression,  that  any  impulse  given  to  the  human 
mind  must  necessarily  propel  it  in  a  course  of 
advancement:  and  that  it  is  only  to  create  a 
talking,  reading,  and  disputing  population,  to 
secure  the  progress  of  the  cause  of  truth.  Some 
look  with  complacency  upon  a  state  of  mental 
fermentation,  as  involving  the  elements  of  politi- 
cal change,  the  seeds  of  a  new  produce  of  ideas, 
and  the  generation  of  a  new  strength  in  the 
country ;  while  others  anticipate  moral  perplexity 
and  mischief  from  this  plebeian  philosophy, 
deeming  it  safer  that  those  who  subsist  by 
manual  labour  should  take  at  least  their  spiritual 
learning  from  authorized  instructors,  than  that 
they  should  be  left  to  rove  at  large  in  a  region 
overspread  with  contagious  error. 

Whatever  ground  there  may  be  for  any  of 


56  THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

these  apprehensions  or  expectations  of  positive 
evil  or  good,  from  the  character  and  tendency  oi 
any  of  our  new  institutions,  the  Christian  phi- 
lanthropist can  prognosticate  success  from  no 
plan  of  public  instruction  which  cannot  claim 
God  for  its  patron.  To  him  it  will  seem  to  be 
a  sound  principle,  that  man  must  be  dealt  with, 
not  merely  as  a  religious  being,  but  as  belonging 
to  a  peculiar  dispensation,  from  which  must  flow 
all  his  maxims  of  moral  truth :  that  the  purposes 
of  universal  education  can  never  be  accomplished 
without  a  specific  and  perpetual  reference  to  the 
one,  supreme,  authentic  model :  that  as  the  best 
learning  for  the  rich,  is  that  which  best  qualifies 
them  to  be  guides  to  the  poor ;  so  for  the  poor, 
that  which  soonest  carries  them  to  the  sources  of 
comfort  and  contentment,  duty  and  peace ;  which 
asks  for  few  intermissions  of  labour,  but  makes 
its  pauses  refreshing  and  improving;  in  short, 
that  the  wisdom  for  the  multitude  is  not  the  wis- 
dom of  the  porch  or  the  academy,  but  that  which 
"  uttereth  her  voice  in  the  streets,"  and  opens  her 
school  to  every  variety  of  condition,  without 
interruption,  without  disturbance,  without  ex- 
cess; that  the  only  proper  impelling  power  for 
giving  motion  and  effect  to  all  the  new  machinery 
of  public  instruction  must  be,  if  any  good  is  to 


THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY.  57 

come  from  it,  the  genuine  purpose  of  educating 
the  soul  for  another  state,  and  widening  the  foun- 
dations of  human  hope. 

The  crude  materials  of  an  inapplicable  know- 
ledge  lie  in  the  mind  only  to  ferment,  perhaps  to 
mount  in  noxious  exhalation,  or  perhaps  to  vege- 
tate in  poisonous  luxuriance. 

That  these  consequences  may  not  reward  the 
spurious  philanthropy  of  the  times  in  which  we 
live,  is  the  earnest  hope  of  the  writer  of  these 
pages;  but  the  only  certain  way  of  obviating 
such  consequences,  is  to  promote  a  direct  in- 
struction in  scriptural  and  vital  knowledge  among 
those  who  are  to  live  by  the  labour  of  their  hands, 
in  opposition  to  that  unholy  dogma  which  dic- 
tates a  general  and  secular  education  as  a  prepa- 
rative to  the  introduction  of  Christian  doctrines. 
With  the  poorer  classes,  the  Gospel  is  the  end 
and  means  of  instruction.  Practical  religion  is 
the  alpha  and  omega  of  their  proper  discipline ; 
it  is  the  most  rapid  way  of  generating  an  intel- 
lectual character  among  them :  if  it  prompt  to 
other  inquiries  and  attainments,  as  it  will  often 
do,  the  great  point  is  at  the  same  time  secured, 
of  bringing  those  attainments  into  subserviency 
to  a  godly  conscience  :  it  keeps  the  heart  whole, 
the  affections  chaste,  and  the  practice  steady ;  it 
may  not  excite  genius,  but  it  exercises  wisdom ; 
6 


58  THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  if  it  do  not  multiply  the  possibilities  of  even- 
tual excellence,  it  secures  the  realities  of  actual 
good. 

It  is  among  God's  plain  appointments,  that 
popular  ignorance  is  not  to  be  dispelled  by  a 
secular,  or  even  a  philosophical  education.  By 
throwing  in  certain  ingredients,  which  general 
education  may  furnish,  it  may  be  made  to  boil 
and  bubble,  to  fume  and  roar — but  it  will  be  ig- 
norance still,  in  a  more  turbid  and  noxious  state. 
None  of  that  knowledge  which  lays  the  founda- 
tion of  good  neighbourhood,  kind  habits,  political 
contentedness,  and  moral  obedience,  will  be  the 
result;  while  numbers  will  be  added  to  the  dupes 
of  inflammatory  falsehoods,  and  the  victims  of  a 
debauching  press.  No  good  can  come  of  any 
discipline  for  the  common  people,  but  that  which 
may  open  their  eyes  to  their  awful  predicament 
as  accountable  creatures. 

But  to  come  a  little  more  to  points.  Has  not 
the  prevailing  disposition  towards  physical  in* 
quiries  produced  an  inordinate  and  contumacious 
spirit  of  research,  under  the  pretext  of  an  un- 
limited love  of  truth  ?  Has  it  not,  in  some  degree, 
perplexed  the  great  landmarks  by  which  the 
provinces  of  mathematical  and  moral  evidence 
are  authentically  divided?  Has  it  not  tended  to 
make  man  himself  too  unreservedly  a  subject  of 


THE  MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY.  59 

experiment  ?  Has  it  not  led  many  to  regard  their 
species  as  an  object  of  natural  history,  an  aggre- 
gation of  functions,  and  mind  as  the  mere  result 
of  structure  and  organization? 

These  intimations  are  thrown  out  by  way  of 
general  caution  against  the  dangerous  inroads 
of  science  on  that  sacred  ground,  into  which 
modern  philosophy  is  beginning  to  introduce  the 
"  dry  bones  of  her  diagrams,  and  the  smoke  of 
her  furnaces." 

Let  the  Christian  householder  be  warned  to 
trench  around  some  of  his  indigenous  convic- 
tions ;  and  to  let  it  be  one  among  the  number, 
that  "  man  was  formed  out  of  the  dust  of  the 
ground;"  that  his  Maker  "breathed  into  his 
nostrils  the  breath  of  life,"  and  that  thus  "  he 
became  a  living  soul." 

If  God  is  a  thinking  Being,  what  necessary 
dependence  can  intelligence  have  upon  organized 
matter  or  animal  substance? 

There  are  other  notions  hovering  about  this 
focus  of  philosophical  intensity,  which  are  hardly 
of  dignity  enough  to  be  dangerous.  Folly  fer- 
ments in  the  neighbourhood  of  mischief,  as  flies 
swarm  in  the  atmosphere  of  infection.  Little 
more,  perhaps,  is  necessary  to  protect  the  mind 
from  the  fever  of  phrenology,  than  to  keep  its 
chambers  clean  and  ventilated. 


60  THE   MECHANIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

But  if  this  will  not  do,  it  may  be  worth  a 
greater  exertion  to  keep  this  mockery  of  science 
am  of  the  family.  Young  minds  and  low  capa- 
cities are  captivated  by  easy  methods  of  acquir- 
ing distinction.  To  conjure  is  shorter  than  to 
calculate;  to  decide  than  to  inquire.  Life  is  brief 
and  study  wearisome;  many  feel  the  greater 
practicability  of  being  overwise  than  wise,  and 
that  it  is  more  easy  to  run  before  the  judicious 
than  to  rank  with  them  ;  to  go  where  they  daf  e 
not  follow,  than  to  submit  to  their  guidance* 


PHILANTHROPIC  EXCESSES.  61 

SECTION  VIII. 

PHILANTHROPIC  EXCESSES. 

In  tracing  the  proper  path  of  the  Christian 
gentleman,  the  subjects  last  alluded  to  have  inci- 
dentally crossed  our  way.    It  requires  a  cautious 
tread  to  be  safe  in  these  times.  Many  misleading 
lights  glimmer  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left, 
to  betray  us  into  swamps  and  quagmires.     The 
atmosphere  of  religion  itself  is  full  of  vapours  and 
false  fires.    However  strong  and  steady  its  proper 
light,  many  meteors  gather  round  it  and  disturb 
its  influence.     In  the  midst  of  much  activity. 
much  moral  ebullition,  a  singleness  and  integrity 
of  purpose  may  be  wanting.     The  mass  and 
momentum  of  the  public  mind  may  be  parcelled 
out  till  its  force  is  frittered  away.     Societies, 
schemes,  and  institutions,  committees  and  sub- 
committees, may  teem  and  swarm  upon  the  floor 
of  the  religious  world ;  charities  may  jostle  and 
cross  each  other;   there  may  be  the  dust,  and 
smoke,  and  din  of  philanthropy;   school  may 
rival  school,  and  teachers  canvass  for  scholars  - 
there  may  be  the  bazaar  and  the  ball;   much 
female  commotion  and  fair  impertinence;   the 
daughters  of  Zion,  in  all  their  bravery  of  attire , 
6* 


62  PHILANTHROPIC  EXCESSES. 

sitting  at  their  stands  and  stalls,  and  forgetting  to 
blush  in  their  pious  work  of  traffic  and  exposure : 
but  still  the  crowning  end  and  proper  design  of 
all  this  stir  and  agitation  may  be  lost  sight  of,  or 
scarcely  mentioned,  or  faintly  avowed.     Talk  of 
the  soul's  concern  and  God's  glory  ;  of  making 
the  Saviour  known  ;  of  sending  through  a  world 
of  sin  the  healing  proclamation  of  the  Gospel ; 
of  giving  to  the  poor  the  learning  that  belongs  to 
them  by  the  charter  of  their  spiritual  destination, 
and  you  may  find  that  you  have  touched  upon  a 
theme  to  which  all  this  loquacious  activity  has 
little  distinct  reference :  a  theme  it  is  that  com- 
prises all  that  is  valuable  and  sound  in  any  reli- 
gious or  charitable  undertaking ;   but  it  leaves 
out  the  picturesque  and  captivating  part,  and 
administers  nothing  to  a  mere  negotiating  and 
intermeddling  egotism. 

To  distinguish  the  specious  and  the  sparkling 
from  the  solid  and  useful,  is  an  exercise  of  dis- 
crimination of  great  importance  to  the  Christian 
gentleman  in  his  family.  Home  is,  after  all,  his 
nearest  concern,  and  should  be  the  main  concern 
©f  her  on  whom  the  dignity  of  home  depends.  A 
vagrant  charity  but  ill  compensates  for  a  deserted 
hearth,  a  distracted  economy,  and  a  loose  do- 
mestic government.  The  moral  landscape  is 
imperfect  without  a  good  foreground  :  it  is  that 


PH[LANTHROPIC  EXCESSES.  63 

which  gives  value  to  the  distant  scenery.  Home 
is  the  nucleus  of  national  morality.  Popular 
meetings,  and  the  bustle  of  management,  are  apt 
to  usurp  upon  those  duties  which,  if  defectively 
performed,  leave  society  in  want  of  that  primary 
nourishment  which  is  not  to  be  superseded  by 
artificial  substitutes.  The  mother  should  be  the 
moon  of  her  little  world,  and  recruit  her  horn 
from  the  source  of  genuine  illumination:  her 
light,  so  borrowed  and  so  dispensed,  is  soft, 
serene,  and  holy ;  and  her  influence  flows  out 
from  a  centre  of  interior  loveliness,  till  it  fills  the 
circle  with  which  she  is  surrounded.  But  while 
all  are  for  educating  all,  specific  culture  may  lie 
neglected ;  and  the  simple,  tender  task  of  maternal 
management  is  ill  exchanged  for  the  ambulatory 
and  ambitious  range  of  distant  objects. 

It  is  true,  that  sometimes  the  outer  verge  of 
that  rampart  which  separates  the  provinces  of 
moral  duty  has  been  trod  by  the  gentler -sex  with 
a  singularity  of  usefulness:  but  in  general  the 
Christian  mother  carries  in  her  bosom  the  sense 
of  an  accumulating  arrear,  which  increases  with 
every  step  in  the  path  that  leads  her  from  her 
home  and  its  warm  precincts.  The  Christian 
gentleman's  family  should  be  a  concentrated 
family,  always  acting  in  combination,  and  with  a 
steady  union  of  purpose  in  the  work  of  practical 


64  PHILANTHROPIC  EXCESSES. 

piety;  it  then  acts  upon  society  with  a  collective 
force,  which  gives  it  an  influence  hard  to  be  re- 
sisted. But  if  its  integrality  be  broken  into  parts, 
however  separately  sound,  yet  not  harmoniously 
composed,  its  movements  are  vacillating,  and  its 
effects  feeble  and  fugitive.  A  Christian  gentle- 
man should  be  the  Coryphaeus  of  his  household ; 
to  whose  example  all  about  him  should  respond 
in  happy  religious  concord.  This  is  the  perfect 
tion  of  domestic  felicity. 


THE  POLITICS.,  &c.  65 

SECTION  IX. 

THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN, 

We  hear,  occasionally,  of  a  distinction  be- 
tween public  and  private  character,  grounded 
on  no  real  difference.  It  may  be,  that  some 
may  use  the  term  in  a  looser  sense  than  others ; 
but  to  affirm  that  Christian  principle  can  be 
modified  by  circumstances,  can  be  active  m 
one  situation  and  quiescent  in  another,  is  to 
forget  the  nobility  of  its  origin.  The  Christian 
gentleman's  character  is  independent  of  place 
or  time.  In  every  part  of  his  course  he  main- 
tains his  parallelism.  The  security  and  comfort 
which  the  simplicity  of  bis  moral  plan  conveys 
to  his  bosom,  are  as  remarkable  as  the  dignity 
and  grace  which  it  lends  to  his  example.  There 
may  be  occasions  produced  by  public  life  too 
strong  and  prevailing  for  the  virtue  that  has 
approved  itself  within  the  circle  of  private  in- 
tercourse; but  then  the  entire  man  is  depressed 
by  every  such  instance  to  a  lower  grade  in  the 
scale  of  moral  dignity ;  the  sum  of  his  value  is 
reduced ;  and  no  solecism  could  be  more  dan- 
gerous to  Christian  ethics  than  to  treat  such 
failures  as  terminating  in  themselves,  or  as  in* 


t>6  THE  POLITICS  OF  THE 

volving  character  no  farther  than  the  sphere  of 
action  in  which  they  have  occurred. 

In  political  life,  it  is  among  the  baser  charac- 
teristics of  party  feeling   that  it   begins  with 
vitiating  the  moral  relish  of  what  is  great  or 
laudable,  just  or  true,  in  itself,  as  far,  at  least, 
as  the  vortex  of  servile  associations  and  predi- 
lections extends,   and  ends  with  sapping   the 
solid  foundations  of  justice,  and  enervating  the 
springs  of  virtuous  utility.     The  school  of  party 
may  form  the  public  man,  in  the  vulgar  view  of 
that  character,  who  takes  up  the  profession  of 
politics,  not  as  a  field  of  duty  or  usefulness,  but 
as  the  road  to  eminence,  profit,  or  power ;  but 
the  man  of  honour — and  such  in  the  highest 
sense  of  that  phrase  must  any  Christian  gentle- 
man be — can  form  no  attachments  but  on  the 
basis  of  legitimate  esteem ;  nor  can  suffer  the 
interests  of  a  nation  to  be  confounded  with  the 
fortunes  of  a  particular  body.    Where  the  tongue 
is  suborned  to  advocate  what  the  conscience 
condemns,  and  the  mind  receives  the  first  ele- 
ments of  politics  in  conjunction  with  the  ambi- 
tious views  of  faction,  the  jurisdiction  of  private 
judgment  is  merged  in  a  cowardly  compromise; 
the  franchise  of  intellectual  freedom  is  bartered 
for  a  mean,  shifting,  and  gaudy  servitude.     If 
there  may  be  good  in  political  confederacies, 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  67 

their  value  must  depend  upon  the  necessity  out 
of  which  they  spring,  and  the  spirit  by  which 
they  are  animated.  Let  the  edifice  of  factious 
power  exult  in  its  proper  supports,  but  let  the 
Christian  patriot  stand  alone,  or,  at  least,  let 
nothing  associate  him  with  party,  but  virtuous 
ends  to  be  accomplished  by  social  means.  In 
party  so  influenced  and  so  limited,  there  may 
be  security  against  individual  presumption  and 
temerity.  Where  men  are  to  act  together  for 
the  common  good,  the  foundation  of  their  per- 
manence must  be  laid  in  the  acknowledgment 
of  those  verities  of  which  none  can  deny  the 
obligation.  There  is  nothing  which  can  hold 
men  together  long,  but  that  which  stands  with 
their  relation  to  God. 

There  may  be  public  conjunctures  which 
may  justify  systematic  opposition  ;  and  there 
may  be  a  prevalence  of  public  virtue  sufficient 
to  control  the  fiercest  contentions  of  party,  and 
bend  them  into  subservience  to  the  great  inter- 
ests of  the  state;  but  these  are  rare  and  special 
predicaments.  The  ordinary  tendency  of  party 
spirit  is  to  confound  the  distinctions  of  virtue 
and  vice,  under  names  and  designations  deter- 
mined by  the  ill-concocted  friendships  and  hos- 
tilities of  the  hour;  to  warp  the  mind  out  of  an 
honest  position,  and  to  degrade  it  to  that  last 


68  THE  POLITICS  OF  THE 

condition  of  mischievous  meanness,  the  hypo^ 
critical  use  of  the  idiom  of  patriotism,  to  cover 
a  canting  ambition  and  selfish  assaults  on  power., 
The  Christian  gentleman  carries  his  high 
bearing  and  courageous  consistency  into  every 
vocation  and  connexion.  Bright  honour  attends 
his  course,  and  preserves  his  very  trcadings  un- 
soiled  by  the  slough  of  party :  he  brings  into 
great  office  or  grave  debate  the  high-mind edness 
which  belongs  to  conscious  elevation ;  while, 
in  the  intercourse  of  social  life,  that  gentleness 
so  mild  and  manly — that  tenderness  which  so 
charms  and  warms,  loses  nothing  of  its  character 
or  colouring.  Congruous  habits  are  the  results 
and  tests  of  permanent  principle  ;  and  what  we 
should  say  is  the  great  mark  of  the  Christian 
gentleman,  is  a  certain  harmony  of  deportment, 
which  shows  him  the  same  under  all  varieties 
of  action  and  relation :  he  holds  in  abhorrence 
the  hypocritical  abuse  of  the  language  of  virtue 
in  the  mouths  of  party  men,  by  which  Virtue 
herself  becomes  suspected,  and  ceases  at  length 
to  be  felt  or  understood :  he  considers  a  factious, 
indiscriminate  opposition  as  a  mean  and  dis- 
honest confederacy;  and  while  he  admits  the 
benefit  of  a  wholesome  parliamentary  jealousy, 
he  cannot  treat  his  country  as  a  secondary  object ; 
he  cannot  falsify  measures,  inflame  discontent, 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  69 

Foster  delusion,  echo  groundless  complaints, 
propose  the  removal  of  inevitable  burdens,  pro- 
mise remedies  for  imaginary  wrongs,  hold  up 
magistracies  to  contempt;  he  cannot  practise 
any  arts  of  cajolement,  to  cheat  the  multitude ; 
or  borrow  their  physical  strength,  to  endanger 
the  edifice  of  public  happiness  and  moral  free- 
dom ;  he  cannot  agree  that  falsehood  or  exag- 
geration in  the  mouth  of  an  election  orator  lose 
their  inherent  baseness.  Truth  is  with  him  of 
universal  obligation,  and  will  suffer  no  pause  or 
suspension ;  and  with  him  there  is  a  sort  of 
reverence  due  to  surrounding  ignorance,  which 
calls  upon  the  chastity  of  virtue  for  something 
more  than  its  ordinary  forbearance  :  he  thinks 
with  Phocion,  that  the  shouts  of  the  multitude 
imply  that  something  wrong  must  have  escaped 
his  lips  ;  and,  with  that  noble  heathen,  he  abhors 
tyranny,  whether  it  be  the  tyranny  of  abused 
authority,  the  tyranny  of  usurpation,  or  the 
tyranny  of  tumultuous  force :  his  love  of  his 
country  is  the  love  of  its  mind,  at  least  as  much 
as  of  its  conquests  or  its  exterior  glory :  he 
therefore  views  his  own  example  in  all  the  ex- 
tension of  its  consequences  i  his  politics  are 
among  the  guards  of  his  private  conduct ;  and 
his  private  worth  is  the  surety  and  pledge  of  his 
public  honour. 

7 


70  THE  POLITICS  OF  THE 

The  lives,  and  principles,  and  speeches  of 
political  men,  more  perhaps  than  any  other  ex- 
amples, display  the  influence  of  genuine  Christi- 
anity in  forming  and  finishing  what  is  great 
and  excellent  in  character.  The  statesman  or 
senator  cannot  be  truly  great  in  separation  from 
Christian  piety. 

In  the  progress  of  our  national  polity,  a  reci- 
procity of  action  has  moulded  our  institutions. 
Led  on  by  an  invisible  hand  and  an  occult  dis- 
pensation, through  a  course  of  crises  and  emer- 
gencies above  man's  contrivance,  and  beyond 
his  forethought,  the  constitution  of  England  has 
progressively  awakened  and  unfolded  the  facul- 
ties of  her  sons ;  and  in  return,  the  character  of 
our  ancestors  has  stamped  upon  every  great 
occurrence  which  has  operated  in  the  formation 
of  our  liberties,  its  vivacious  impression.  It  was 
Christianity  in  an  imperfect  form,  which  raised 
the  tone  of  our  early  habits  and  character  above 
the  average  mind  of  contemporary  periods.  A 
serious  courage,  a  manly  heart,  a  consecrated 
allegiance,  were  the  distinguishing  qualities  of 
those  patriots,  whose  worth,  under  severe  assays, 
came  out  from  the  furnace  pure  and  resplendent. 
A  chivalrous  attachment  to  the  prince ;  generous 
and  religious,  and  therefore  consistent  with  the 
largest  love  of  legitimate  freedom ;  a  high  spirited 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  71 

sentiment  of  duty,  grounded  on  a  certain  sanctity 
of  principle,  as  deeply  carved  as  the  quarterings 
on  the  field  of  his  escutcheon,  were  wont  in  our 
early  days  to  be  the  characteristics  of  the  noble- 
man and  gentleman  of  England. 

This  character,  indeed,  was  not  strictly  Chris- 
tian, but  it  displayed  the  power  of  Christian 
principles,  which,  even  by  their  secondary  oper- 
ation, modified  ferocity  into  courage,  licentious- 
ness into  freedom,  sense  into  sensibility,  appetite 
into  love.  Cradled  in  the  forest,  the  British 
character  grew,  under  the  rough  discipline  of 
stormy  conjunctures,  to  a  singular  hardihood  of 
moral  texture,  and  Christianity  completed  its 
stature,  and  filled  out  its  proportions.  This  was 
the  source  of  the  magnaivmous  self-devotion 
which  displayed  itself  so  often  in  war  and  in 
council;  and  not  seldom  in  the  dungeon  and 
on  the  scaffold.  It  was  seen  in  that  peculiar 
gravity  and  composure  which  distinguished  the 
dying  moments  of  some  of  our  great  progenitors, 
whose  decorous  deaths  have  sealed  our  chartered 
rights,  and  purchased  the  inheritance  of  our 
liberties. 

Travelling  through  the  land  with  the  scales 
of  justice  in  her  hands,  Christianity,  imperfect 
as  it  was,  familiarized  to  the  people  the  maxims 
of  equity  and  equality,  and  maintained  in  the 


?2  the  politics.,  &c. 

public  mind  an  elasticity  against  the  pressure  of 
unjust  rule,  ready  to  profit  by  every  opportunity 
of  expansion.  Her  action  was  constant,  while 
that  of  oppression  was  irregular  and  vacillating ; 
and  such  was  the  virtue  of  the  constitution  under 
her  ascendancy,  that  as  intelligence  proceeded, 
and  enlarged  its  boundary,  the  polity  of  England 
kept  on  a  par  with  this  progression.  Struggles 
and  conflicting  tendencies  were  natural  and  un- 
avoidable ;  superstition  and  tyranny  fought  for 
their  lives,  and  in  military  language,  sold  their 
lives  dear.  They  had  their  victims  on  the 
scaffold  and  at  the  stake ;  innocence  and  loyalty 
were  immolated,  but  the  perfume  of  the  sacrifice 
diffused  a  fragrance  through  the  land  ;  and  the 
stream  of  those  pure  libations  quickened  every 
seed  of  patriotism,  with  which  the  soil  of  Eng- 
land had  been  early  sown,  into  vigorous  vege- 
tation and  life. 


THE  LITERATURE,  &C.  75 


SECTION  X. 

THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN. 

The  Christian  gentleman  is  by  supposition  a 
man  of  letters.  Liberal  learning  is  a  constituent 
of  his  character.  Indolence  and  sensuality  are 
twin  sisters.  If  our  baser  nature  assumes  the 
command,  the  understanding  puts  on  its  livery ; 
and  it  accords  with  all  practical  observation,  that 
knowledge  and  superstition  are  in  an  inverse 
proportion.  It  is  because  truth  challenges  in- 
quiry, that  Christianity  is  the  religion  of  research, 
the  assertor  of  intellectual  freedom,  and  the 
partner  of  philosophy  in  its  highest  acquisitions. 

It  says  to  the  inquirer  after  truth,  examine 
my  pretensions ;  investigate  my  muniments  and 
my  documents »  trace  my  course  from  my  first 
commencement ;  apply  to  me  every  fair  test  of 
moral  evidence  ;  try  me  by  the  soundest  canons 
of  critical  learning ;  ask  what  history  records  of 
that  paradoxical  power,  by  which  passions,  pre- 
judices, and  propensities  have  been  overruled, 
and  nature  bent  into  subserviency  to  an  invisible 
vocation,  and  a  glory  beyond  the  grave;  and; 
t^Jl  me  whether  you  do  not  find  me  to  possess 


7* 


74  THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE 

incentives  to  stimulate  the  finest  capacities  of 
man's  intelligence  and  genius. 

These  are  the  invitations  and  challenges  of 
Christianity ;  and  it  is  among  its  properties  and 
peculiarities  that  it  equally  addresses  itself  to 
all  degrees  of  intelligence :  it  descends  into  the 
vales  of  ignorance,  and  crowns  the  summits  of 
knowledge ;  it  ministers  to  man  wherever  it 
finds  him,  in  his  elevations  and  in  his  depres- 
sions ;  it  is  milk  to  the  suckling,  and  meat  to 
the  wise;  it  is  confirmation  to  the  strong,  and 
a  staff  to  the  feeble :  where  learning  is  not,  it 
supplies  the  vacancy  ;  where  it  is,  it  secures  its 
advantages :  by  the  divine  efficacy  of  its  perfect 
principles,  it  carries  society  forward,  consolidates 
the  powers  of  the  intellect,  and  makes  its  accu- 
mulations at  once  permanent  and  productive. 

Thus  the  Christian  gentleman  graduates  fast 
in  the  best  school  of  learning.  The  more  he 
knows  of  his  Saviour  and  the  Bible,  the  more 
correct  and  chastised  is  his  general  knowledge ; 
the  more  the  exercise  of  his  faculties  is  secured 
from  disturbance,  and  the  more  amenable  he 
becomes  to  the  discipline  of  truth  and  the 
delights  of  genuine  taste. 

Learned  society  and  literary  habits  are  often 
the  friends  of  presumptuous  error,  and  act  a 
plausible  but  treacherous  part  in  their  influence 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  75 

on  principles.  But  the  Christian  gentleman  is 
in  no  danger  from  these  distracting  tendencies ; 
his  security  lies  no  less  in  the  subordination  of 
his  faculties  than  in  his  right  estimate  of  things 
without.  Where  the  values  of  objects  are  com- 
puted in  their  relation  to  eternity,  and  the  in- 
terests of  the  soul  stand  in  their  due  priority, 
there  is  neither  contradiction  nor  vacillation  in 
the  movements  within,  and  the  powers  of  the 
intellect  are  sustained  in  an  equable  progression. 
There  is  a  silliness  characteristic  of  the  wisest 
in  their  generation  where  the  religious  mind  is 
wanting ;  an  interest  in  trifles,  a  mean  standard 
of  worth,  and  a  littleness  of  pursuit.  Sound 
religion,  by  engaging  the  whole  mind  on  the 
side  of  truth,  adjusts  these  discordances  ;  there 
is  in  it  a  rectifying  influence,  that  puts  all  the 
capacities  on  a  right  poise  and  position  for 
effective  operations. 

There  is  in  evangelical  religion  an  expansive 
principle,  that  seems  to  spread  out  the  soul  and 
enlarge  its  border.  Learning  in  the  service  of 
religion  is  essentially  liberal.  What  charter  is 
so  complete  as  that  which  opens  to  the  capacities 
a  celestial  range — a  range  commensurate  with 
man  in  the  most  extended  relations  of  his  being? 
Unsanctified  science  loses  itself  in  a  labyrinth 
of  second  causes,  fritters  down  knowledge  into 


76  INTELLECTUAL  ADVANTAGES 

vain  disputations,  and  involves  itself  in  the  folds 
of  circular  reasoning;  but  the  learning  of  the 
devout  Christian  always  looks  to  an  end  and  a 
consummation.  He  sees  God  expressed  in  all 
his  works ;  and  where  mystery  stops  his  pro- 
gress, he  turns  to  the  great  magazine  of  original 
power;  the  solitary  source  to  which  all  mys- 
teries are  traceable,  wherein  the  solution  of  all 
problems  resides,  and  all  conflicting  realities  are 
at  peace. 

It  is  further  the  privilege  of  the  Christian 
mind,  that  all  its  learning  issues  in  self-know- 
ledge ;  in  that  knowledge  which  lights  the  way 
to  the  inmost  area  of  the  bosom,  where  the  spirit 
of  truth  carries  on  its  controversy  with  our  in- 
herent unfaithfulness,  and  the  victory  of  prayer 
is  achieved.  As  the  Christian  advances  in  this 
intellectual  progress,  he  grows  in  inward  and 
outward  grace,  and  his  deportment  attests  the 
alliance  of  interior  peace  with  exterior  compo- 
sure :  all  is  harmony,  proportion,  and  order ; 
the  composition  of  the  man  is  complete,  accord- 
ing  to  the  measure  of  his  capacities. 

Life  is  replete  with  examples  of  the  dilating 
influence  of  religion  on  the  powers  of  the  un- 
derstanding. The  experience  of  every  observ- 
ing man  attests  this  interesting  truth.  Tlie 
pious  mind  perceives  in  it  the  traces  of  a  holy 


OF  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION.  11 

dispensation ;  and  that  in  this,  as  in  every  other 
providential  appointment,  "  Wisdom  is  justified 
of  all  her  children."  It  is  in  fact  the  only  effec- 
tual ripener  of  the  understanding :  other  stimu- 
lants may  produce  precocity  or  exuberance ; 
but  that  which  bestows  the  mellow  softening  of 
mature  grace,  which  unfolds  the  principle  of 
vital  growth,  which  makes  progress  proficiency, 
acquisition  gain,  and  knowledge  wisdom,  is 
religion — sound,  saving,  authentic  religion,  the 
religion  of  Christianity,  as  it  stands  evangelically 
recorded. 

Is  an  instance  required  of  the  simultaneous 
course  which  religion  holds  with  the  progress 
and  development  of  intelligence?  look  at  the 
career  of  that  sage  and  sober  servant  of  Christ, 
the  late  Reverend  Thomas  Scott ;  think  of  him 
struggling  with  the  prejudices  and  depravities 
of  nature  and  education ;  an  heroic  assertor  of 
the  purest  liberty  of  research,  with  no  auxiliary 
but  truth,  marching  from  conquest  to  conquest, 
and  pushing  forwards,  by  honest  effort,  the 
bounds  of  his  acquisitions,  till  the  whole  field 
was  won.  What  but  the  "  force  of  truth' * 
could  have  led  him  from  the  sheep-fold,  where 
"  he  was  following  his  father's  ewes,"  to  the 
sources  of  divine  intelligence?  and  what  but 
the  learning  he  there  found  c  ould  have  led  him 


73      INTELLECTUAL  ADVANTAGES 

on  in  a  course  so  remote  from  all  his  habits — 
habits  arrived  at  their  full  strength — to  those 
profound  attainments  which  have  given  him  a 
place  among  the  luminaries  of  his  age  and 
nation?  We  see  in  him  a  specimen  of  biblical 
culture,  and  of  the  force  of  sacred  truth  in 
drawing  out  the  best  part  of  man  into  its 
amplest  and  fairest  proportions :  a  product  of 
pure  religious  growth,  a  creature  of  Christianity, 
made  for  its  glory ;  a  solitary,  protesting,  honest 
man,  taking  his  stand  on  God's  word,  and  pro- 
claiming his  convictions  with  fearless  integrity. 
No  founder  of  an  ancient  school,  no  insiitutor 
of  a  modern  sect,  no  reformer,  no  discoverer, 
has  at  any  time  put  forth  more  independent 
thinking,  or  assumed  a  freer  range  of  inquiry ; 
but  in  the  exercise  of  his  privileges,  his  first 
resort  was  to  that  teaching  which  had  a  just 
right  to  his  first  attention,  and  it  rewarded  him 
by  an  improvement  that  might  seem  miraculous 
to  those  who  have  not  been  observant  of  the 
league  subsisting  between  reason  and  religion. 

If  from  this  venerable  sage  of  the  Gospel, 
whose  life  has  illustrated  the  force  of  religion 
in  abbreviating  study,  and  rescuing  the  under- 
standing from  the  perversions  of  habitual  error, 
we  turn  to  the  early  maturity  of  Henry  Kirke 
White,  we  see  on  the  other  hand  the  power  of 


OF  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION.  79 

religion  in  endowing  the  tenderness  of  youth 
with  the  vigour  of  ripe  age,  and  anticipating 
the  teaching  of  experience.  It  may  be  admitted 
that  his  natural  capacity  made  him  a  quick 
recipient  of  the  truth ;  but  his  great  felicity  was 
his  bent  towards  religious  exercises  and  objects ; 
and  the  early  introduction  of  religious  know- 
ledge into  his  mind  repaid  him  by  such  an 
infusion  of  intellectual  vigour,  that  at  an  age 
when  others  scarcely  begin  to  learn,  he  was 
invested  by  his  attainments  with  the  privileges 
of  a  teacher.  And  so  it  will  ever  be,  that  when- 
ever pure  evangelical  religion  finds  an  entrance 
into  the  mind,  however  dark  or  uninstructed 
that  mind  may  previously  have  been,  an  ex- 
pansion of  its  general  powers  is  the  speedy 
consequence ;  the  judgment  is  preternaturally 
ripened,  a  better  taste  and  feeling  respecting  all 
social  duties  and  moral  proprieties  are  rapidly 
developed,  and  the  faculties  and  perceptions, 
whether  called  forth  on  men,  or  books,  or  things, 
receive  from  an  unseen  source  an  increment  of 
vital  strength,  that  soon  appears  in  all  their 
operations.  It  is  an  invigoration  of  the  capacity, 
not  unlike  the  refreshment  which  nature  feels 
from  the  silent  and  invisible  drops  which  in  the 
still  summer  night  moisten  and  impregnate  her 


80       INTELLECTUAL  ADVANTAGES 

teeming  surface,  enabling  her  to  greet  the  dawn 
with  a  countless  increase  of  vegetable  births. 

It  were  easy  enough  to  find  contrasts  to  the 
above  specimens  in  the  history  of  our  country's 
literature ;  proofs  of  the  injury  done  to  the  best 
intellects  by  the  neglect  of  religious  culture ; 
instances  of  the  abortive  births  of  genius  under 
the  deteriorating  influence  of  profane  and  pro- 
fligate sentiments.  Turn  to  that  great  orator 
and  wit  of  his  day.  The  few  years  which  have 
elapsed  since  his  departure  have  sufficed  for  the 
recovery  of  a  cool  consideration  of  his  intellec- 
tual powers,  and  of  the  real  value  and  merit  of 
his  performances.  Observe  how  short  his  genius 
came  of  fulfilling  its  proper  ends  and  answering 
its  great  capabilities,  and  compute  how  much 
was  lost  to  the  energies  and  qualities  of  that 
extraordinary  mind  from  the  absence  of  sound 
religious  principles,  with  their  correcting,  ele- 
vating, and  systematizing  influence.  Nature 
had  furnished  him  with  all  the  elements  of 
greatness,  and  fitted  him  to  be  the  ornament 
and  blessing  of  these  eventful  times;  but  the 
absence  of  every  thing  restraining  and  regulating 
in  the  first  formation  of  his  habits,  left  him  at 
large,  the  creature  of  accidental  impressions — 
the  pupil  of  his  own  passions,  and  vanities,  and 


OF  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION.  81 

wants.  Some  wild  flowers  grew  upon  this  moral 
wilderness,  which  threw  around  them  a  faint 
evanescent  glory,  and  seem  in  some  degree  to 
decorate  his  grave ;  but  they  only  served  while 
he  lived  to  cover  the  path  of  his  errors,  and  to 
promote  the  fascinations  of  a  ruinous  example. 
For  want  of  the  harmonizing  effects  of  a  religious 
ground,  his  moral  eloquence  was  unnatural,  im- 
posing, inflated,  and  lalse ;  full  of  tawdry  anti- 
theses and  tricking  artifice,  mimicking  princi- 
ples to  which  his  heart  was  a  stranger,  and 
glittering  in  the  pageantry  of  borrowed  feelings. 
His  most  celebrated  attempts  at  moral  elevation 
exhibit  only  the  intimations  of  meanings  which 
played  about  his  fancy,  without  touching  his 
bosom;  and  amidst  the  misdirected  resources 
of  his  genius,  his  fine  intellect  prematurely  fell 
into  decay,  leaving  only  the  monuments  of  a 
grand  capacity  in  ruins.  Had  he  possessed 
those  right  and  persevering  dispositions  which 
are  the  results  of  religious  principles,  instead 
of  a  few  mischievous  efforts  to  make  virtue 
ridiculous  and  vice  attractive,  his  genius  would 
have  multiplied  our  means  of  extending  the 
boundaries  of  real  knowledge,  and  our  securities 
against  hollow  and  presumptuons  systems  of 
empirical  instruction.  As  it  was,  Mr.  Sheridan 
could  never  attain  in  his  lifetime  to  dignity, 
8 


82      INTELLECTUAL  ADVANTAGES 

opulence,  or  trust,  or  raise  to  himself  a  monu- 
ment among  his  country's  benefactors.  The 
sincere  portion  of  his  existence  was  miserably 
vain  and  sensual ;  and  never,  perhaps,  did  the 
entire  man  sink  so  altogether,  and  at  once,  into 
the  shade  and  frost  of  penury  and  neglect. 

Is  another  instance  required  ?  Look  at  that 
void  and  dreary  space,  so  recently  filled  by  the 
greatest  genius  of  these  latter  times :  see  the 
print  of  his  unholy  tread,  where  every  noxious 
plant  still  grows  in  rank  luxuriance.  Of  what 
was  he  not  capable,  if  religion  had  guided  his 
efforts  and  inspired  his  song  ?  Who  can  estimate 
the  amount  of  damage  done  by  him  to  mind 
and  its  treasures?  the  waste  committed  upon 
the  fairest  domains  of  imagination  by  his  abuse 
of  his  great  capacities  ?  In  him  the  clearest 
moral  perceptions,  the  control  of  all  that  belongs 
to  the  bright  ideal  world  of  poetic  invention  and 
combination,  a  magnificent  store  of  language, 
pathos,  and  sentiment,  were  all  dissipated,  in- 
tercepted, degraded,  and  spoiled  by  a  heartless 
principle  of  impiety  and  an  atheistical  buf- 
foonery of  manner.  That  the  infidel  puts  a 
cheat  upon  his  own  understanding  and  starves 
his  genius  by  refusing  the  bread  of  life,  is  no 
where  better  exemplified  than  in  the  poems  of 
the  writer  here  alluded  to.   Whatever  idol  claims 


OF  SPIRITUAL  RELIGION.  83 

the  honour  of  the  sacrifice,  a  more  costly  homage 
was  never  offered  at  any  shrine  of  prostitute 
worship.  That  intelligence  which  stood  upon 
a  level  with  the  most  glittering  elevations  of 
human  character,  surrendered  itself  to  the  tram- 
mels of  a  vicious  vulgarity. 

Good  sense  and  good  taste  sicken  at  the  repe- 
tition of  apologies  for  sin  in  the  disguise  of  sen- 
timent— sensuality  without  relief  wearies  even 
the  sensual.  It  may  be  reasonably  doubted 
whether  moral  pollution,  by  whatever  power  of 
song  it  may  be  celebrated,  can  confer  immor- 
tality, or  even  rescue  poetry  from  the  putrefying 
neglect  by  which  the  muse  is  revenged  upon 
those  who  abuse  her  gifts.  The  perversion  of 
natural  feeling,  the  perpetual  stench  of  the  sty 
of  Epicurus ;  infidel  banter  for  ever  withering 
the  fairest  forms  of  virtue  and  holiness  ;  beauty 
and  bravery,  in  the  constant  uniform  of  lust  and 
cruelty,  are  surfeiting  things,  even  to  the  lewdest 
ear,  when  novelty  has  ceased  to  recommend 
them.  In  a  few  more  years,  men,  women,  and 
children  will  grow  tired  of  a  mannerist  in  versi- 
fying, who,  in  contempt  of  his  own  capabilities, 
has  been  pleased  to  luxuriate  in  a  slovenly  laxity 
of  composition,  and  a  reprobate  rhyming  facility, 
adopted  as  a  suitable  vehicle  for  jests  upon  the 
marriage  tie,  and  the  profane  treatment  of  truths 


#4        INTELLECTUAL  ADVANTAGES,  &C. 

unutterably  solemn;  for  exhibiting  lust  as  a 
harmless  recreation,  and  the  world  as  a  wilder- 
ness intended  only  for  the  wide  and  predatory 
range  of  the  passions. 


FAMILY  GOVERNMENT,  &C.  85 


SECTION  XL 

FAMILY  GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN 
GENTLEMAN. 

The  Christian  gentleman  is  in  his  best  estate 
and  properest  attitude  as  a  family  man :  his  deal- 
ing with  his  children,  with  his  domestics,  and 
with  his  tradespeople,  manifests  the  operation  of 
that  central  principle  which  radiates  in  every 
direction.     But  the  sure  sign  and  note  of  Chris- 
tianity is  a  humbled  heart ;  not  the  mere  dispo- 
sition of  humility,  which  may  be  allied  to  mean- 
ness and  servility,  but  that  product  of  Christian 
grace  which  comports  with  true  dignity  of  cha- 
racter.    The  order  of  society,  and  every  relation 
comprehended  under  it,  discipline  and  degrees, 
homage  and  honour,  control  and  respect,  all  the 
correlative  duties  of  life,  are  in  perfect  corres- 
pondence with  spiritual  humility ;  they  belong  to 
the  same  harmonious  system.    Christian  temper 
must  not  be  confounded  with  temperament.     It 
is  known  from  that  which  belongs  to  fibre  and 
contexture,  by  its  moral  sway  and  the  constancy 
of  its  action.     By  humility  the  Christian  is  made 
involuntarily  ^reat :  his  moderation  is  power :  his 
8* 


86  FAMILY  GOVERNMENT,  &C. 

gentleness  is  force:   his  empire  is  that  of  com- 
placency, consistency,  and  love. 

To  treat  humility  as  the  source  of  authority, 
may  have  the  air  of  paradox ;  but  it  is  a  fact  re- 
markably evidenced  in  the  government  of  a  Chris- 
tian family.  If  the  Christian  father  must  ground 
his  jurisdiction  on  the  Gospel,  and  decide  parlour 
controversies  by  an  appeal  to  that  standard,  his 
personal  veneration  for  it  must  be  first  attested 
by  a  profound  and  practical  submission  to  its 
ordinances.  The  humility  of  the  parent,  when 
exhibited  as  a  Christian  grace,  is  a  constraining 
pattern,  the  tendency  of  which  is  to  keep  up  a 
perpetual  recognition  of  the  engagements  of  our 
religious  professsion,  to  establish  a  family  com- 
pact of  reciprocal  forbearance,  and  to  purify  the 
whole  atmosphere  of  home  by  the  fire  of  the  altar; 
his  talk,  his  walk,  all  his  communication  will 
combine  to  enunciate  his  Christian  character. 
Before  his  children  he  will  move  with  a  special 
awe  of  the  consequences  of  each  word  and  act. 
It  will  be  his  great  care 

Ut  sanctam  filius  omni 
Aspiciat  sine  labe  domura,  vitioque  carentenk 


THE  EXTERIOR   INTERCOURSE,   &C.      87 


SECTION  XII. 

THE  EXTERIOR  INTERCOURSE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN 
GENTLEMAN. 

There  is  a  distinct  society  among  men  which 
we  designate  by  the  name  of  "  the  Religious 
World;"  and  to  this  community  the  Christian 
gentleman  does  necessarily  belong.  But  within 
this  line  of  circumscription  there  are  many  classes 
and  grades  of  Christians,  more  or  less  imbued 
with  the  proper  evangelical  spirit.  To  impute 
insincerity  to  any  within  this  circle  would  be 
inconsistent  with  candour  or  Christian  charity. 
It  may  be  allowable,  however,  to  remark,  that 
there  is  in  some  men  a  tendency  to  shut  up  reli- 
gion within  their  own  arbitrary  enclosure;  to 
surround  it  with  technicalities  and  interdicts 
which  do  not  belong  to  it ;  to  make  it  speak  a 
language  of  peculiar  and  private  dictation,  and 
to  hold  in  virtual  excommunication  a  very  large 
portion  of  sound  and  serious  Christians.  None 
without  the  shibboleth  can  enter  the  sacred  bar- 
riers; and  with  it,  men  of  little  understanding  and 
narrow  sentiment  are  easily  admitted.  To  be 
spiritually  separated  from  the  world  is  the  sacri- 
fice required  by  Christianity  from  its  true  pro- 


88  THE  EXTERIOR  INTERCOURSE 

fessors;  but  it  is  from  the  world  that  lieth  in 
wickedness,  from  the  god  of  this  world  that 
blindeth  the  mind,  from  the  rulers  of  the  darkness 
of  this  world,  from  the  lust  of  the  eye  and  the 
pride  of  life,  that  we  are  to  be  separated;  not 
from  those  who  in  manners  and  opinions  differ 
by  some  shades  from  ourselves,  or  who,  though 
equally  anxious  for  the  soul's  safety  and  for  the 
extension  of  Gospel  truths,  are  less  often  than 
themselves  at  religious  meetings,  having  families, 
perhaps,  to  provide  for  or  instruct,  or  being, 
perhaps,  less  conversant  with  a  certain  phrase- 
ology by  which  these  exceptious  persons  mea- 
sure the  progress  of  Christian  attainments. 

The  Christian  gentleman  would,  probably,  be 
soonest  found  on  the  outside  of  this  exclusive 
and  mystic  circle;    his  charities  and  affections 
delight  in  a  clear  horizon  and  extensive  ken ;  in 
the  substances  of  things  rather  than  their  cir- 
cumstances; in  the  genuine  expression  of  feeling 
and  the  rectitude  of  the  heart,  rather  than  in  the 
trammels  of  an  unvaried  phraseology  and  an 
exclusive  medium  of  religious  communication  : 
he  loves  wisdom,  and  virtue,  and  goodness,  and 
beneficence,  wherever  he  finds  them,  and  all 
"  the  impresses  of  God  on  the  spirits  of  brave 
men;"  he  sees  also  that  the  Father  of  Heaven 
sendeth  rain  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust;  and;, 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  89 

imitating  the  pattern  of  this  great  Mercy,  he 
embraces  all  men  within  the  scope  of  his  chanty, 
and  carries  his  Christian  regards  to  all  that  aim 
at  pleasing  God  by  obedience  to  the  Son  of  his 
love  and  the  Word  of  his  power.  This  is  that 
friendship  which  has  been  christened  charity  by 
the  Gospel,  and  this  is  that  charity  which  is 
friendship  to  all  the  world.  It  is  a  friendship 
and  charity  which  separate  those  who  possess 
them  from  all  commerce  with  impiety,  but  give 
the  widest  influence  to  Christian  counsel  and 
holy  practice.  In  the  religion  of  the  Christian 
gentleman  there  is  something  frank,  natural,  and 
simple, — shall  we  say  manly?  not  so,  certainly, 
in  the  sense  of  that  word  as  it  comes  from  the 
mouth  of  a  worldly  person,  but  as  it  indicates 
the  cordial  and  resolute  adoption  and  profession 
of  the  truth,  abstracted  from  party  feelings, 
corporate  distinction,  or  silent  self-adulation. 
Neither  is  it  meant,  by  animadverting  on  the 
language  in  which  the  religion  of  a  peculiar  class 
is  apt  to  express  itself,  to  narrow  the  free  and 
frequent  exercise  of  pious  conversation,  or  to 
reduce  the  space  it  occupies  in  religious  com- 
panies. If  this  is  a  life  of  preparation  for  another 
which  is  to  last  for  ever;  if  our  Almighty 
Father  has  reconciled  us  to  himself  by  a  way  of 
stupenduous  grace  and  mercy ;  if  he  has  scat- 


? 


90       THE  EXTERIOR  INTERCOURSE,  &C. 

tered  his  beneficence  over  the  whole  face  of  his 
creation,  it  is  but  a  consequence  of  natural 
gratitude  to  pass  much  of  our  time  in  talking  of 
his  power,  his  glory,  and  his  goodness;  but 
there  is  nothing  in  all  this  to  justify  a  principle 
of  sequestration  or  exclusion,  or  to  warrant  the 
pretensions  of  a  privileged  order. 

The  Christian  gentleman,  though  of  no  reli- 
gious corps,  has  generally  the  fate  of  being 
assigned  over  by  each  class  to  some  other. 
However  fervent  in  spirit,  his  professions  range 
within  the  limits  of  a  strict  moderation:  his 
views  are  singly  directed  to  the  glory  of  God 
and  the  good  of  man ;  he  carries  his  religion, 
or  rather  the  spirit  of  his  religion,  into  all  his 
intercourse  and  converse  with  society ;  but  he 
carries  no  banner  or  motto  before  him,  his  creed 
is  written  in  his  practice,  and  blazoned  in  his 
victories  over  pride,  passion,  and  temper, 


FAMILIAR  TALK,  &c.  91 


SECTION  XIII. 

FAMILIAR  TALK  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN. 

The  table-talk  of  the  Christian  gentleman  is 
that  part  of  his  conduct  in  which  he  particularly 
declares  himself.     It  is  in  the  competency  only 
of  considerable  minds  to  season  social   inter- 
course with  wit,  or  to  enrich  it  with  the  tributary 
products  of  ready  wisdom:  but  there  is  a  com- 
placent turn  of  thought  and  morality  character- 
istic of  the  well-educated  and   well-furnished 
Christian,  which,  with  little  advantage  from  ex- 
perience, conciliates  and  fixes  attention.     It  ean 
hardly  happen,  but  by  a  very  cross  combination 
of  circumstances,  that  a  father  can  fail  of  being 
the  centre  of  attraction  to  his  family,  where  reli* 
gion  joins  its  voice  to  that  of  nature  to  enforce 
his  claims.     To  guide  domestic  conversation, 
and  to  give  to  it  its  proper  tone;  to  make  it 
profitable  and  irreproachable,  the  multiplier  of 
thoughts,  the  medium  of  a  spiritual  commerce, 
a  mutual  provocation  to  virtuous  resolves  and 
manly   purposes,    is  the  province   which  the 
Christian  father  must  fill  in  his  family,  or  he 
does  not  reach  the  level  of  his  station. 


92  FAMILIAR  TALK  OF  THE 

There  are  other  besides  his  children  to  whom 
the  domestic  and  familiar  talk  of  a  Christian 
belongs.  His  servants  have  a  property  in  it: 
they  have  a  claim  upon  it  in  virtue  of  their 
ignorance.  An  awful  accountability  waits  upon 
the  accents  of  a  parent  in  the  midst  of  children 
and  domestics,  whenever  he  approaches  what 
belongs  to  their  peace,  touches  the  consecrated 
lines  which  distinguish  truth  from  error,  right 
from  wrong,  reason  from  prejudice,  or  affects  in 
whatever  degree  the  principles  by  which  we  live 
to  God,  to  ourselves,  and  to  society. 

There  is  a  garniture  with  which  Christian 
morality  decorates  common  discourse,  for  which 
no  other  gifts  or  graces  can  be  adequately  sub- 
stituted.    A  natural  dignity,  a  composure  of 
manner,  a  quiet  eye,  a  complacent  regard,  are 
among  the  exterior  advantages  which  it  confers: 
they  denote  its  specific  presence,  its  peaceful 
domicile  in  the  bosom.     When  the  passions 
and  principles  are  not  under  its  control,  the 
countenance  betrays  an  inward  riot.    Something 
unrectified,  tumultuous,  alarmed,  suspicious,  or 
fierce — something  that  carries  the  mark  of  Cain, 
that  tells  of  inborn  corruption,  that  discovers  the 
alienated  mind — gathers  about  the  brow  of  a 
godless  person,   speaks  in  his   gestures,  and 
breaks  through  the  disguise  of  artificial  breeding. 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  93 

Thus  it  is  that  a  real  Christian  heart  is  funda- 
mental to  that  graceful  composition  of  the  social 
man,  emphatically  called  the  gentleman.  The 
religious  gentleman  is  such  in  his  countenance; 
he  carries  in  his  forehead  his  credentials  from 
above,  and  the  seal  of  his  designation  and  calling. 
He  comes  with  a  sort  of  diplomacy  into  the 
world,  bearing  the  badge  and  collar  of  his  great 
Master,  whose  willing  agents  are  not  only  in  his 
holy  service,  but  in  his  holier  similitude. 

In  a  peculiar  sense,  the  Christian  gentleman 
must  be  absent  from  the  world :  not,  indeed, 
from  the  intercourse  of  business  with  the  world ; 
such  an  abstraction  may  not  be  consistent  with 
his  duties  and  engagements ;  neither  does  it 
comport  with  his  general  character  and  necessarv 
relations  to  withhold  himself  from  the  commerce 
of  good  offices  and  cheerful  hospitality  :  but  he 
must  separate  himself  by  a  decided  line  from 
the  loose  practices  and  careless  demeanour  of 
worldly  men.  He  who  sets  God  always  before 
him,  cannot  "  sit  among  the  ungodly,"  without 
a  depression  of  spirit.  The  communication  with 
the  godless  he  cannot  altogether  avoid :  he  cannot 
avoid  the  contact,  but  he  may  avoid  the  inter- 
mixture. As  he  has  his  delights,  with  which 
they  cannot  intermeddle,  so  does  the  nature  of 
their  pleasures  exclude  his  participation.  There 
9 


^4  CONVERSATION  OF  THE 

is,  however,  a  neutral  ground  on  which  they 
may  stand  together ;  common  interests,  by  which 
they  may  be  temporarily  associated ;  reciproci- 
ties, which  hold  them  in  occasional  correspon- 
dence ;  but  the  Christian  gentleman  looks  below 
him  on  the  crowd  of  pleasure's  votaries.  While 
"  he  meditates  in  the  fields,  at  eventide,"  or 
converses  with  God  in  his  chamber,  or  sits  in 
his  watch-tower,  to  "  muse  upon  his  works," 
he  sees  through  dust  and  smoke  the  plain  beneath 
him,  the  "  dwellings  of  Mesech,"  and  the  "  tents 
of  Kedar,"  or  perhaps  the  turrets  of  the  distant 
city, 

"  Where  the  noise 
Of  riot  ascends  above  her  loftiest  towers, 
And  injury  and  outrage." 

The  Christian  gentleman  is  not  required  to 
declare  war  against  what  he  must  disapprove; 
his  object  must  be  simple  separation,  and  that 
will  be  effected  for  him,  without  trouble  on  his 
part.  He  has  only  to  declare  for  God,  and  the 
sentence  of  outlawry  will  follow :  his  imputed 
leprosy  will  send  him  from  the  camp  to  his  own 
world  of  pure  and  rational  delights. 

After  all,  however,  let  Christian  piety  be  fairly 
judged,  as  to  its  real  effects  on  social  happiness. 
Has  it  no  merry  moods?  The  way  to  do  it 
justice  will  be  to  bring  under  a  fair  comparison 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  95 

with  each  other  its  renunciations  and  its  acquisi- 
tions. This  is  to  settle  on  an  accurate  footing 
its  secular  account  with  man.  In  adjusting  this 
balance,  it  is  too  true  that  the  Bible  must  be 
delivered  over  to  the  unevangelized  mind,  or 
the  worldly  professor  of  Christianity,  as  a  field 
of  witty  allusion,  sportive  contrast,  and  ludicrous 
comparison :  that  which  was  written  by  inspira- 
tion, and  intended  for  instruction,  for  reproof, 
and  for  exhortation,  he  forces  into  the  service  of 
folly  and  impiety.  His  humour  is  emancipated; 
against  the  interdicts  of  Heaven,  he  avails  him- 
self of  the  toleration  of  man  and  the  sufferance 
of  human  laws;  he  roves  at  large  a  lawless 
buccanneer,  making  booty  of  all  that  comes  in 
his  way :  but  his  wit  loses  by  its  prodigality  as 
much  as  it  gains  by  its  hardihood ;  frequency 
and  facility  cheapen  its  merchandize;  its  sallies 
are  remembered  in  heaven,  and  echoed  in  hell : 
he  is  playing  with  thunder,  and  kissing  the 
mouth  of  a  cannon.  All  this  the  profane  hu- 
morist is  aware  of;  it  checks  his  efforts,  and 
damps  his  self-complacence;  he  inwardly  feels 
that  of  every  such  experiment  the  success  is 
precarious,  the  penalty  sure.  He  is  conscious 
that  the  odds  of  this  desperate  game  are  cruelly 
against  him :  and  when  men  laugh  against  their 
own  convictions,  there  is  always  in  their  merri- 


96  CARRIAGE  OF  THE 

ment  something  of  a  contradictory  emotion,  that 
trembles  on  the  lip,  and  transpires  in  the  manner : 
the  heart  that  is  true  to  the  devil  is  false  to  itself. 
But  the  pious,  too,  have  their  own  province 
of  humour.  It  may  be  of  a  sober  sort ;  but  it 
has  an  extensive  range;  and  were  it  not  restrained 
by  the  proximity  of  the  peril,  the  partnership  of 
a  fallen  nature,  and  the  checks  of  conscious 
infirmity,  the  vanities  and  vagaries  of  boasting 
unbelief  would  be  the  fairest  objects  of  ridicule 
to  the  well-instructed  Christian.  As  it  is,  his 
mature  and  meditative  mind  finds  appropriate 
amusement  in  the  exposure  of  the  shifts  and 
sophistries  of  the  disputers  of  this  world.  He 
sees  them,  in  the  midst  of  their  false  security, 
"  set  in  slippery  places:"  he  deplores  the  danger; 
he  derides  the  folly.  Cowper,  Newton,  Home, 
and,  in  a  more  sarcastic  vein,  the  Dean  of  St. 
Patrick,  have  shown  that  infidelity  and  impiety 
might  give  perpetual  employment  to  wit,  if 
charity  were  not  in  the  way.  The  sorrows  to 
which  humanity  is  heir,  will  not  allow  them  to 
make  ridicule  and  banter  the  staple  of  conversa- 
tion ;  but  the  pious  mind  most  correctly  feels, 
and  can  best  expose  the  elaborate  impertinencies 
and  follies  of  artificial  life.  It  is  in  the  table-talk 
of  the  right-minded  Christian  that  a  pure  and 
delicate  humour  is  oftenest  found ;  that  humour 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  97 

which  is  the  seasoner  and  corrector  of  familiar 
discourse,  the  source  at  once  of  discipline  and 
delight,  the  medium  in  which  virtue  and  vivacity 
unite  and  co-operate. 

Those  who  attempt  the  definition  of  a  gentle- 
man, are  apt  to  lay  stress  on  a  certain  dignified 
ease  in  his  composure  and  address.     Ease  is 
not  assurance ;  if  it  were,  the  Christian  would 
have  no  advantage  in  this  respect.     The  ease 
which  belongs  to  a  quieted  temper  and  a  trusting 
heart  is  his — permanently  his.     The  awe  and 
awkwardness  which  arise  from  false  grounds  of 
appreciation,  he  must  necessarily  feel  in  a  less 
degree  than  others;  first,  because  he  feels  in  a 
stronger  degree  than  others  the  humiliating  truth 
of  our  common  debasement ;  and  secondly,  be- 
cause the  value  of  adventitious  elevation  has 
with  him  no  more  than  the  respect  which  ration- 
ally belongs  to  it :  human  pretensions  are  in  his 
mind  compared  with  a  standard,  which  greatly 
lessens  their   substantial  disparity.     The  man 
whose  thoughts  are  most  in  heaven,  walks  the 
earth  with  the  greatest  composure :  the  service 
of  mammon  is  a  service  of  toil  and  trepidation ; 
the  service  of  God  is  a  "  service  of  perfect 
freedom ;"  and  the  character  of  the  service  will 
appear  in  the  manners.     It  is  in  the  Christian 
mind  that  a  generous  ease  finds  the  best  soil  for 
9* 


98  CARRIAGE,  &€. 

its  spontaneous  growth.  He  is  shame-faced 
only  before  those  by  whose  nearer  resemblance 
to  the  evangelical  pattern  he  feels  himself  dis- 
credited. A  strong  faith  weakens  the  hold  of 
human  opinion;  it  gives  an  air  of  conscious 
liberty  to  the  countenance.  The  Christian  so- 
journs among  men,  as  the  citizen  of  another 
state,  franchised  from  their  jurisdiction  by  the 
high  privilege  of  his  acceptance  with  God,  in 
all  matters  which  can  affect  his  soul's  estate,  or 
the  real  dignity  of  his  nature;  and  thus  he  moves 
with  a  serene  confidence  among  those  from 
whose  judgment  he  has  an  instantaneous  appeal , 
and  from  whose  wrongs  he  can  fly  to  an  invisible 
Sanctuary. 


WORLDLY  DEALINGS,  &C.  99 


SECTION  XIV. 

WORLDLY  DEALINGS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN 
GENTLEMAN. 

What  pure  religion  forms,  it  finishes;  the 
totality  of  its  principle  is  marked  in  the  smallest 
lineaments  of  the  Christian  gentleman.  Like 
the  blood  which  dispenses  the  living  energy 
through  the  whole  corporeal  frame,  Christian 
morality  runs  through  the  whole  contexture  of 
conduct,  giving  to  every  part  a  similar  basis 
and  consistence.  In  the  veritable  Christian  we 
see  an  entire  scheme  of  behaviour,  agreeing  with 
itself  under  ail  diversities  of  circumstances :  all 
his  dealings  and  negotiations  are  under  the 
guarantee  of  this  pervasive  and  coercing  princi- 
ple ;  in  his  traffic  with  men  he  remembers  his 
compact  with  Heaven,  and  the  federal  vow  that 
is  upon  him. 

The  mere  gentleman,  perhaps,  in  the  best 
worldly  conception  of  the  character,  rejects  the 
soil  and  slough  of  a  bargain.  If  it  be  true  that 
the  little  arts  of  deceptious  dexterity  are  thrown 
off  from  the  generous  mind  by  a  simple  effort  of 
its  nature,  it  is  equally  true  that  in  the  same 
fiature  where  this  generosity  prevails,  are  found 


100  WORLDLY  DEALINGS  OF  THE 

the  dangerous  excesses  and  spurious  qualities 
which  belong  to  that  sentiment  of  honour  which 
is  bred  out  of  the  habits  of  society ;  but  where 
the  feelings  and  associations  of  the  gentleman 
are  regulated  and  confirmed  by  the  permanent 
influence  of  Christian  motives  and  sanctions,  the 
moral  of  life  is  simplified  and  assimilated  in  all 
its  possible  predicaments,  and  the  whole  of  the 
social  man  is  brought  under  one  rule  of  decisive 
application — the  rule  of  righteous  reciprocity, 
1  which  the  glorious  Gospel  has  pronounced. 
One  might  expect  that  the  gentleman,  as  such, 
independently  of  the  Christian  obligation,  would 
be  secured  by  his  worldly  honour,  if  he  hold 
that  principle  in  its  extended  sense,  from  every 
thing  that  has  the  odour  or  colour  of  fraud ;  yet 
the  gentleman,  so  called,  is  often  little  scrupulous 
of  evading  the  payment  of  a  tax,  or  of  dealing 
in  prohibited  or  uncustomed  goods,  to  the  injury 
of  the  revenue  and  the  fair  trader,  however  dis- 
graceful to  his  port  and  breeding  such  a  practice 
should  be  deemed,  taking  his  standard  no  higher 
than  his  chivalrous  origin  and  the  legend  and 
device  of  his  escutcheon.  But  the  Christian 
gentleman  lives  under  a  law  which  is  explicit 
and  decisive  on  the  subject;  which  requires  him 
to  render  unto  all  their  dues;  tribute  to  whom 
tribute,  custom  to  whom  custom.   If  a  Christian 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  101 

professor  commit  or  countenance  an  act  so 
pregnant  with  meanness,  falsehood,  and  violence, 
he  brings  the  stigma  of  hypocrisy  upon  himself, 
and  a  scandal  upon  the  service  of  his  Master. 

Among  men,  the  proper  test  of  the  presence 
and  influence  of  religion  is  its  visible  occupation 
of  the  conscience.  If  it  be  real,  it  runs  through 
the  character  in  its  whole  length  and  breadth. 
Then  it  is  that  the  entire  conduct  is  restricted 
within  those  lines  of  circumscription,  of  which 
the  clear  written  declaration  of  the  divine  will 
has  furnished  the  directory  rule.  Speculative 
religion,  or  that  which  plays  about  the  heart,  or 
that  which  glows  in  the  fancy,  or  that  which 
enshrines  itself  in  human  eloquence,  leaves  a 
large  area  about  the  centre  of  busy  life  free  from 
its  intermeddling;  but  the  religion  of  the  con- 
science is  every  where  intrusive,  crossing  our 
common  paths,  meeting  us  at  every  turn,  and 
dispersing  over  all  the  concerns  of  active  exist- 
ence luminous  indications  of  the  divine  will. 
It  is  an  oracle  which  requires  no  formal  consul- 
tation, no  journeys  to  its  shrines ;  it  is  ever  in 
ministerial  attendance,  coming  at  every  call,  at 
hand  in  every  exigence,  anticipating  the  casuistry 
of  the  passions,  those  false  prophets  within  us, 
and  showing,  in  fiery  traces,  all  the  interceptive 
lines  bv  which  God  has  restricted  the  path  of  his 


102  WORLDLY  DEALINGS,  &C. 

faithful  servants.  The  true  Christian  is  known 
as  much  in  the  little  as  in  the  great  things  of  life : 
he  sees  the  transgression  in  the  principle.  "  The 
fear  of  the  Lord  is  clean,"  and  therefore  every 
unclean  practice,  whether  in  his  contracts,  his 
engagements,  his  money  transactions,  his  com- 
mon intercourse,  his  manners,  or  his  conversa- 
tion, is  under  the  control  of  an  incessant  monitor. 
It  is  true,  we  are  contemplating  a  rare  specimen ; 
but  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  has  settled  the  standard, 
and  placed  it  above  human  interference.  It  is 
in  a  graceful  symmetry,  or  an  union  of  the  parts 
into  one  consistent  and  refulgent  whole,  that  the 
perfection  of  the  Christian  gentleman  resides. 
As  there  may  be  a  greatness  known  to  the 
sculptor,  which  owes  something  to  the  neglect 
of  proportion ;  so  what  to  man's  perceptions  is 
heroic,  is  often  the  result  of  a  colossal  grandeur : 
but  the  character  of  gentleman  rejoices  in  the 
combination  and  consent  of  its  parts ;  and  when 
the  character  of  Christian  accedes  to  it,  its 
dimensions  are  enlarged,  while  its  proportions 
are  maintained ;  and  this  is  the  state  of  man  to 
which  the  epithet  of  great  does  in  truth  belong, 
though  the  multitude  allow  nothing  to  be  great 
but  that  by  which  society  is  convulsed,  or  a 
domineering  spirit  is  let  loose  upon  the  world. 


EDUCATION,  &C.  1  OS 

SECTION  XV. 

EDUCATION  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN. 

There  is  a  strange  want  of  adaptation  in  our 
scholastic  institutions  to  the  production  of  a 
character  at  all  answering  to  the  Christian  model : 
none  of  our  methods  lead  up  to  it.     To  keep 
the  proper  destiny  of  man  in  the  view  of  a  child; 
to  present  life  as  a  whole  to  his  contemplation, 
and  as  a  gift  bestowed  for  a  certain  end  ;  to  in- 
culcate a  principle  of  steady  direction ;  to  fill 
the  soul  with  a  consciousness  of  the  claims  upon 
it,  and  of  its  essential  relations  and  affinities ;  to 
set  in  their  right  order  the  first  impelling  powers; 
to  institute  a  determinate  progression  ;  to  place 
before  each  his  personal  vocation,  and  to  open 
in  clear  perspective  the  lines  of  specific  duty 
comprehended   in   the  great  practical  plan  of 
God's  moral  government,  are  things  unthought 
of  in  our  schools  of  highest  reputation  for  the 
formation  of  gentlemen.    If  Christianity  be  true, 
and  if  it  do  really  involve  all  that  is  most  worthy 
of  attainment,  the  education  of  the  country  is 
rotten  at  the  core.    It  has  no  prospective  or  final 
connexion  with  the  Christian  scheme  of  com- 
mutative forbearance  and  love,  nor  is  any  one 


104  EDUCATION  OF  THE 

of  the  constituents  of  St.  Paul's  definition  of 
charity  included  in  its  scope  or  contemplation. 
In  many  of  our  great  schools  it  is  even  forgotten 
that  life  is  a  functional  gift ;  that  we  breathe  to 
think,  and  think  to  act  in  a  prescribed  course  of 
duty  and  charity  ;  that  it  is  our  great  business 
to  know  and  practise  the  will  of  Him  who  made 
us,  and  to  start  in  the  career  of  life  as  candidates 
for  his  forgiveness ;  that  each  of  us  has  a  post 
to  maintain,  a  station  to  fill,  a  part  to  act,  a 
fearful  responsibility  to  encounter.  Warped  by 
these  errors  of  discipline  from  the  true  line  of 
dignity  and  modesty,  a  juvenile  throng  is  suc- 
cessively mixing  at  random  with  our  bearded 
population,  bringing  with  them  fresh  importa- 
tions of  anti-christian  habits,  the  natural  product 
of  a  fighting,  fagging,  flogging  system,  alternat- 
ing between  slavery  and  tyranny ;  where,  if  a 
knowledge  of  the  world  is  gained  by  anticipation, 
precocity  in  vice  maintains  at  least  a  parallel  pro- 
gress. They  come  forth  to  the  world  Christians 
in  name,  but  Heathens  in  prejudice,  furnished 
with  an  estimate  of  life  and  its  blessings,  alike 
inconsistent  with  their  proper  relation  to  man, 
and  their  baptismal  covenant  with  God. 

The  amusements  of  our  gentlemen  are  the 
mirror  in  which  the  state  of  education  in  the 
country  is  reflected.     Some  of  them  may  be  of 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  105 

a  virtuous,  some  of  an  innocent  character,  and 
some  of  no  character  at  all,  but  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  them  are  steeped  in  the  depravity 
of  our  nature,  and  of  a  crimson  colour.  The 
persecution  of  inferior  animals,  a  ruthless  enter- 
tainment furnished  by  their  forced  exertions, 
brawling  festivities,  and  impure  spectacles,  still 
form  the  prevailing  portion  of  man's  delights 
in  this  largely  educated  country.  In  mass  and 
quantity  no  nation  upon  earth  can  boast  such 
provisions  for  the  moral  and  literary  education 
both  of  the  rich  and  poor :  our  established  re- 
ligion is  the  religion  of  the  Gospel;  and  our 
great  seminaries  of  learning  are  in  theoretical 
union  with  its  principles;  but  the  country 
contains  few  instances  of  schools  wherein  the 
precepts  and  injunctions  of  our  religion  are 
explictly,  consistently,  and  systematically  re- 
cognised and  acted  upon.  Can  it  be  affirmed 
of  any  of  our  public  schools,  that  any  system 
exists  in  them  for  placing  virtue,  reason,  and 
religion,  above  force,  and  tyranny,  and  passion  ? 
Fine  things  may  be  said  of  them  at  anniversary 
dinners,  or  where  there  may  be  an  interest  or 
pride  in  complimenting  the  scenes  of  our  boyish 
achievements  and  unworn  sensibilities ;  but  it  is 
nevertheless  lamentably  true,  that,  except  some 
stated  exterior  observances  of  religion,  vestige.? 
10 


106  EDUCATION  OF  THE 

of  their  primitive  designation,  (with  what  languor 
performed  !)  no  plan  is  in  practical  operation,  in 
any  of  our  national  seminaries,  for  adjusting  the 
behaviour  of  the  youths  to  their  vocation  as 
Christians,  or  even  teaching  them  to  live  together 
conformably  to  the  standard  of  the  best  Heathen 
morality.  The  whole  plan  and  character  of  these 
establishments  are  opposed  to  any  such  views. 
Their  machinery  may  be  good  for  the  promo- 
tion of  classic  literature,  but  to  the  formation  of 
habits,  the  inculcation  of  principles,  and  the 
government  of  the  heart  and  conduct  after  the 
model  of  that  system  which  in  our  creeds  and 
sacred  offices  is  held  forth  as  the  only  sure  and 
saving  system,  there  is  not  in  our  British  semi- 
naries any  adequate,  or  indeed  any  considerable 
dedication  of  time  or  assiduity.  So  far  from  it, 
that  it  is  among  the  excellences  usually  attributed 
to  public  schools,  that  the  boys  are  left,  in  their 
commerce  with  each  other,  to  the  guidance  of 
their  own  wills  and  feelings,  out  of  the  conflicts 
and  agitations  of  which  is  expected  to  arise  a 
commonwealth  of  worthies,  full  of  equity  in 
their  principles,  honour  in  their  sentiments,  and 
kindness  in  their  intercourse.  But  what  is  the 
simple  truth?  what  is  the  real  state  of  boys 
committed  to  their  own  moral  legislation  ?  Is 
k  a  society  of  mutual  justice  and  equal  law;  or 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  107 

is  it  one  in  which  gentleness  is  despised,  inno- 
cence derided,  and  authority  assailed  ? 

In  the  system  derived  from  M.  Pestalozzi, 
as  it  has  been  exhibited  at  Stanz,  at  Hofwyl, 
and  at  Yverdun,  there  are  faults  and  defects 
leading  to  some  practical,  perhaps  dangerous 
errors ;  but  it  proceeds,  upon  the  whole,  in  a 
virtuous  spirit;  and  has,  at  least,  exhibited  a 
polity  in  which  bone  and  muscle  have  no  pre- 
rogative— a  polity  in  which  a  law  of  liberty  and 
the  maxims  of  a  wise  beneficence  are  realized 
to  the  conceptions  and  sensibilities  of  the  young 
bosom,  as  the  preparations  for  the  part  which, 
by  their  Christian  profession,  they  stand  engaged 
to  act  in  the  scenes  which  await  their  maturity. 

Inquire  into  the  social  or  moral  condition  of 
any  of  our  public  or  chartered  schools,  and 
observe  which  prevails,   the  Christian  or  the 
Heathen  character;  that  of  which  the  Founder  of 
our  faith  is  the  author  and  the  pattern,  or  that 
of  which  the  foundation  was  laid  in  sin  and 
sensuality.     Then  go  to  their  anniversaries,  and 
observe  in  what  parents  and  teachers  place  their 
pride  and  importance ;  dull  declamations  ill  re- 
cited, the  cant  of  Heathen  moralists,  addressed 
to  ears  for  the  most  part  incapable  of  under- 
standing them ;  or  exhibitions  of  Latin  plays,  in 
which  boys  are  prepared  for  the  great  stage  of 


108  EDUCATION  OF  THE 

life  by  personating  miserly  old  men,  profligate 
sons,  imperious  courtesans,  and  lying  valets. 
From  these  scenes  retire  to  the  peaceful  vale, 
where  Pestalozzi  walks  with  his  youthful  reti- 
nue ;  see  them,  in  their  affectionate  relation  to 
their  master  and  to  each  other,  living  under  the 
yoke  of  equal  fellowship,  in  the  practice  of 
mutual  kindness,  and  cultivating  their  talents 
of  mind  and  body  from  a  principle  of  duty  to 
themselves  and  others,  without  strife,  or  envy, 
or  clamour.  See  there  the  reason  cultivated, 
the  affections  directed,  and  the  spirits  softened; 
see  there  the  benefits  of  an  unremitting  superin- 
tendence, constant  occupation,  gentle  treatment, 
firm  distributive  justice;  see  there  the  sacred 
links  by  which  virtue  is  married  to  happiness. 
These  comparisons  may  lead  us  to  comprehend 
and  feel  the  value  of  a  real  substantial  process, 
where  every  thing  fosters  and  enforces  the  sen- 
timent of  duty  and  the  glowing  charities  of  the 
heart,  and  to  understand  with  a  bosom* intelli- 
gence how  far  such  a  system  rises  above  a  grand 
officious  scene  of  endowed  and  chartered  edu- 
cation. 

Surely  that  is  the  wise  system  of  instruction 
which  superinduces  a  better  nature,  rather  than 
that  which  leaves  nature  to  itself;  that  which 
holds  the  appetites  in  willing  subjection,  rather 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  109 

than  that  which  leaves  them  to  their  own  acci- 
dental counterpoise ;  that  by  which  children  are 
affiliated  to  their  preceptor,  rather  than  that 
which  consigns  them  to  their  own  crude  and 
barbarous  legislation.  But  in  our  great  public 
schools  the  master  stands  aloof  from  all  sympa- 
thy with  the  scholar ;  and  that  which  is  properly 
an  affair  of  the  soul  and  a  labour  of  love,  is 
made  the  business  of  official  detail  and  frigid 
authority. 

It  is  true  that  the  enterprise  of  M.  Pestalozzi 
may  have  something  of  too  complexional  a  cast, 
too  much  of  dependence  upon  the  extraordinary 
qualities  of  the  instructor.  It  may  be  better 
calculated  for  the  valleys  of  Switzerland  than 
for  the  vortex  of  British  society  ;  but  the  moral 
interests  and  obligations  of  man  are  every  where 
the  same,  and  sometimes  opportunities  and  sea- 
sons may  be  forced  into  existence  by  the  plastic 
vigour  of  invincible  perseverance.  Manly  en- 
terprise will  sometimes  create  its  own  means  of 
success ;  and  the  world  is  always  better  for 
every  provocation  to  good  thoughts  and  designs, 
by  which  its  intelligence  may  be  shaken  and  its 
aims  exalted.  Institutions  not  very  dissimilar 
to  these  Swiss  establishments  have  found  a  place 
amongst  us,  and  their  increase  may  be  hoped 
for  in  proportion  as  they  unfold  their  advantages* 
10* 


110  EDUCATION  OF  THE 

The  good  sense  and  feeling  of  a  large  part  of 
our  countrymen  gives  us  ground  for  expecting 
that  by  a  more  paternal  and  religious  culture  of 
our  youth,  in  imitation  of  the  general  genius  of 
M.  Pestalozzi's  establishments,  debarrassed  of 
some  of  its  details,  and  in  a  more  vital  connexion 
with  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  something  may- 
be effectually  done  towards  laying  the  foundation 
of  a  happier  society  among  men. 

The  great  point  to  be  contended  for  is  this — ■ 
that  projects  for  the  education  of  the  lower  orders 
can  never  be  successful  unless  they  are  com- 
bined with  an  improvement  of  our  institutions 
for  the  education  of  the  higher.   The  community 
must  all  move  on  together.    A  greater  anomaly 
can  scarcely  be  imagined,  than  an  improved 
education  for  the  poor,  while  the  education  of  the 
upper  classes  is  suffered  to  continue  stationary 
at  the  point  at  which  it  now  stands,  in  respect  of 
religious  culture.     There  is  a  natural  order  in 
the  providential  arrangements  of  society  to  which 
human  institutions  cannot  oppose  themselves 
without  a  jar  that  must  throw  every  thing  out  of 
its  place;  and  this  order  requires  that  teachers — 
and  such  are  virtually  all  those  who  support 
or  conduct  institutions  for  popular  education— 
.should   be  well   taught  themselves.     It  is  so 
natural  for  the  poorer  part  of  the  people  to  look 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  Ill 

up  to  the  wealthier  for  examples,  that,  could 
this  state  of  things,  by  a  strong  countervailing 
influence,  be  inverted,  society  must  reel  under 
such  a  disturbance  of  its  balance,  and  a  convul- 
sive change  in  its  relations  and  dispositions 
would  become  inevitable.  But  a  proper  edu- 
cation of  the  rich  must  lead  to  a  just  education 
of  the  poor ;  such  a  beginning  would  not  only 
be  the  pledge  of  sincerity,  but  an  integral  part 
of  the  plan :  in  a  word,  it  may  with  safety  be 
affirmed,  that  all  systems  for  the  instruction  of 
the  poor  are  mere  delusions,  unless  an  education 
in  the  same  spirit,  however  different  in  the  sub- 
ject and  the  form,  be  given  to  the  children  of 
all  conditions.  We  should  either  cease  to  call 
Christianity  our  established  religion,  or  our 
chartered  schools  and  general  institutions  should 
be  essentially  Christian. 

If  the  education  which  our  church  supposes 
her  members  to  receive,  and  to  the  successive 
stages  of  which  she  has  adapted  her  formularies, 
were  really  in  harmony  with  our  professions  and 
sacred  institutions,  we  might  expect  a  race  of 
Christian  gentlemen,  who  would  be  the  educa- 
tors of  their  country  by  their  very  position  in  it. 
Then  would  the  dissemination  of  religious  truths^ 
for  which  the  superior  orders  of  society  are 
combining  and  subscribing,  be  the  result  of  a 


112  EDUCATION  OP  THE 

veracious  adoption  of  them,  and  a  sincere  per- 
suasion of  their  intrinsic  value.  Then  would 
spiritual  reform  assume  a  simultaneous  start 
and  progression,  and  the  great  purposes  of  pious 
edification  be  illustrated  in  the  lives  of  its  pro- 
moters. Then  would  wise  teaching  be  placed 
under  the  best  security — under  a  covenant,  to 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  would  be  a  party,  to 
dispense  among  the  poor  one  only  sort  of  in- 
struction— that  authentic  unambiguous  instruc- 
tion which  lays  the  foundation  of  moral  conduct 
in  Christian  belief,  and  deduces  all  the  duties, 
obligations,  charities,  and  claims  of  social  and 
domestic  intercourse,  from  the  will  of  God, 
scripturally  revealed.  Under  this  honest,  simple, 
palpable  teaching,  spreading  before  the  multi- 
tude their  proper  ethics  and  their  proper  litera- 
ture, we  should  soon  discern  the  beginnings  of 
a  progressive  enlargement  of  popular  feeling,  the 
increase  of  industrious  and  independent  habits, 
and  a  melting  away  of  that  stubborn  mass  of 
ignorance  of  which  our  speculative  writers  so 
philanthropically  complain,  and  which,  in  the 
view  of  our  political  regenerators,  is  to  be  dis- 
persed only  by  their  grand  catholicon — cheap 
and  plebeian  philosophy,  with  a  liberal  and  neu- 
tral religion. 
It  is.  to  this  new  race  of  Christian  gentlemen., 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  113 

the  creatures  of  this  better  education,  that  we 
are  to  look  for  that  successful  moral  culture  by 
which  the  character  of  the  people  may  be  essen- 
tially raised.  No  mechanical  arrangement  will 
bring  this  about :  it  must  be  the  work  of  living 
agency.  It  is  in  things,  not  in  words,  that  the 
essence  of  teaching  resides ;  in  those  vital  speci- 
mens of  practice  and  example,  which  write  their 
lessons  on  the  heart,  in  characters  of  efficient 
holiness.  Eminent  example  must  beckon  the 
people  to  come  forth,  from  a  region  of  perpetual 
shade,  to  the  bright  borders  of  that  luminous 
disk,  where  man  may  walk  by  the  light  of 
heaven,  and  breathe  with  conscious  delight  a 
kindling  atmosphere  of  newly  recognised  duties, 
relations,  and  privileges. 

From  such  a  race  of  gentlemen,  the  product 
of  a  Christian  education,  we  may  hope  to  see  the 
present  gloom  of  juvenile  delinquency  brighten 
into  promise;  and  upon  the  extended  floor  of 
Christian  worship,  vouchsafed  of  late  to  the 
spiritual  exigence  of  the  poor,  a  holier  observ- 
ance of  the  Sabbath  spring  up,  the  great  and 
sure  criterion  of  national  improvement.  It  is 
then  that  we  may  expect  to  see  religion  vitally 
impressed,  rather  than  technically  taught,  and 
displaying  its  proper  transforming  influence,  by 
exchanging  that  sour,  unblessed  state  of  society, 


114  -      EDUCATION  OF  THE 

wherein  the  spirits  of  the  poor  press  incessantly 
against  coercion,  and  order  leans  upon  a  militant 
support,  for  the  harmony  of  reciprocal  protection 
and  obedience — the  poisons  of  the  press,  and 
the  prurience  of  licentious  curiosity,  for  that 
appropriate  learning  and  compendious  wisdom 
which  inculcate  duty,  peace,  and  order,  and 
unfold  to  the  humblest  student  the  great  art  and 
mystery  of  holy  living  and  happy  dying.  But 
only  then  can  these  things  be,  when  the  statutes 
of  an  all-wise  God  shall  control  the  teaching  of 
moral  self-righteousness,  and  the  lords  of  that 
secular  darkness  shall  cast  their  crowns  at  the 
foot  of  the  cross. 

We  are  arrived  at  a  period  of  high  expectation 
and  pretension,  if  not  of  moral  commotion.  Art 
is  triumphing  over  nature,  and  reason  is  shaking 
off  the  yoke  of  authority  ;  former  things  are  fast 
dropping  into  discredit,  and  the  aspect  of  the 
times  is  perplexed  with  indications  of  change. 
But  what  throws  "  ominous  conjecture"  over 
all  these  movements,  is  a  certain  character  of 
conceit  which  accompanies  them.  England 
seems  to  grow  less  English ;  the  very  counten- 
ances of  men  are  becoming  strange ;  the  streets 
of  the  capital  teem  and  swarm  with  novelties 
and  exotic  affections.  Precocious  attainments, 
the  forced  products  of  our  new  system  of  mental 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  115 

culture,  have  inverted  the  order  of  families,  and 
laid  the  honours  of  reverend  age  at  the  feet  of 
talkative  and  prejudging  inexperience:  autho- 
rity, usage,  prescription,  and  precedent,  have 
no  longer  the  prejudices  of  men  in  their  favour. 

Before  the  preponderancy  of  good  or  evil  in 
this  new  order  of  things  can  be  determined,  we 
must  wait  for  the  final  balance  of  the  results. 
It  may  be  a  mighty  development,  it  may  be  a 
magnificent  cheat.  One  thing  we  may  maintain 
with  confidence — the  great  value  of  sober  exam- 
ple in  eminent  station,  at  a  moment  so  pregnant 
with  consequences,  in  a  time  when  example  is 
every  thing,  because  opinion  is  every  thing; 
when  the  moral  principle  which  pervades  the 
public,  and  determines  the  tendency  and  quality 
of  opinion,  as  to  laws,  and  measures,  and  men, 
is  the  source  of  all  substantial  security — the 
vital  spring  of  government  itself;  and,  according 
to  the  character  it  assumes,  the  aliment  of  dis- 
order or  the  pledge  of  perpetuity  and  peace. 
The  whole  system  rests  upon  this  fulcrum. 

It  is  the  natural  effect  of  the  numerous  insti- 
tutious  now  on  foot  throughout  the  land,  to 
make  us  a  reasoning,  intermeddling  people ;  and 
it  is  awful  to  think  of  the  consequences,  if  all 
this  movement  in  the  moral  state  of  society  is 
treated  as  bringing  with  it  no  new  motives  to 


116  EDUCATION  OF  THE 

vigilance  and  preparation.  The  fortune  of  the 
state  is  involved  in  the  character  of  its  rulers ; 
neither  monarchy  nor  magistracy  can  stand  with- 
out it:  there  is  no  repose  upon  the  couch  of 
prefi  rment,  no  dignity  in  the  staff  of  office,  no 
terror  in  the  sword  of  justice,  no  sanctity  in  the 
crosier,  no  majesty  in  the  diadem,  unless  opinion, 
rightly  constituted  opinidh,  administer  to  them 
its  unseen  and  gratuitous  support. 

Every  day,  and  all  day  long,  a  mighty  moral 
inquest  upon  all  that  is  distinguished  and  great 
in  rule  and  station,  is  sitting  on  the  floor  of  the 
nation.  By  the  rapid  publicity  given  to  every 
movement  of  exalted  persons,  and  by  those  arts 
of  discovery  to  which  no  privacy  is  inaccessible, 
all  public  men  are  brought  before  the  forum  of 
the  multitude,  and  virtually  put  upon  their 
country.  There  is,  therefore,  no  stability  in 
the  system  of  our  polity,  but  what  consists  in 
the  sterling  worth  of  our  men  of  station  and 
fortune.  We  may  almost  count  the  years  of 
our  probable  duration  by  the  number  of  our 
Christian  gentlemen ;  and,  furthermore,  it  is  the 
Christian  portion  of  the  Christian  gentleman's 
character  which  gives  it  all  its  strength  and 
potency  ;  it  is  this  which  contracts  the  distance 
between  the  high  and  low,  by  bringing  elevated 
station  within  the  reach  of  all  the  sympathies 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  117 

which  belong  to  our  common  nature ;  it  shows 
us  to  ourselves,  as  in  a  faithful  mirror,  associated 
under  a  similar  allotment  of  misery  and  mor- 
tality ;  and  in  the  midst  of  our  artificial  distinc- 
tions makes  us  feel  and  recognise  that  affiliating 
cord  which  draws  us  together  under  a  common 
dispensation  of  sin  and  sorrow,  hope  and  for- 
giveness, grace  and  correction. 

The  ascendancy  of  the  Christian  principle  in 
the  bosom  of  the  British  gentleman,  is  just  now 
the  single  principle  on  which  the  solid  frame  of 
our  polity  reposes.  Let  our  universities  look 
to  this,  if  they  love  their  own  existence,  and 
"  would  fain  see  good  days."  Their  own  towers 
will  tumble  upon  them,  unless  they  so  order 
their  institutions  as  to  supply  the  demand  which 
the  times  make  upon  them  for  loyal  gentlemen 
and  Christian  legislators.  Above  all,  let  them 
consider  that  they  are  the  great  seminaries  of 
the  church — of  a  church  surrounded  by  enemies, 
and  on  all  sides  vigorously  assailed.  Let  the 
Christian  gentleman  come  forth  a  son  of  this 
church  ;  an  inheritor  and  transmitter  of  its  bless- 
ings and  its  graces — a  son  of  the  true  church, 
that  is,  of  the  busy  church,  the  ministering 
church  of  Christ ;  of  her  who  in  spirit  recognises 
only  her  real  and  effective  agents — her  bold  ex- 
postulated with  the  high — her  faithful  teachers 
11 


118  EDUCATION,  &C. 

of  the  low ;  her  iirrn  promulgators  of  evangelical 
truth,  full  of  the  awful  immensity  of  the  obliga- 
tion which,  as  trustees  of  deathless  souls,  they 
have  incurred  both  towards  God  and  towards 
man :  of  that  church  which,  rightly  understood, 
is  the  depository  of  the  faith  once  delivered  to 
the  saints,  warranted  by  inspiration,  illustrated 
by  wisdom,  and  attested  by  blood ;  which  stands, 
in  stature,  stability,  and  beauty,  pre-eminent  in 
Christendom,  purest  among  the  congregations 
of  the  devout  on  earth,  most  in  the  spiritual 
likeness  of  the  temple  not  made  with  hands, 
and  most  fit  to  resound  with  the  hallelujahs  of 
the  faithful 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  MODEL,  &C.  119 


SECTION  XVI. 

THE  SCRIPTURAL  MODEL  OF  A  CHRISTIAN 
GENTLEMAN. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  qualities 
of  the  Christian  and  the  gentleman  are  in  paral- 
lelism with  each  other,  and  that  each  draws  its 
existence  and  perfection  from  a  distinct  source, 
— that  the  one  taking  its  origin  from  the  world 
and  its  school  of  manners,  and  the  other  derived 
from  its  proper  author,  work  together  as  co- 
efficients in  fashioning  the  character  of  the  Chris- 
tian gentleman.  The  case  is  far  otherwise. 
The  whole  composition  is  fundamentally  Chris- 
tian ;  the  result  of  that  formative  grace  which 
renovates  the  heart,  and  which,  as  a  refiner's  fire 
or  as  fuller's  soap,  purges  the  thoughts  and 
temper  from  the  dross  and  scum  of  their  gross 
adhesions. 

If  we  turn  our  attention  to  the  mere  exterior 
manners,  to  the  modes  and  habitudes  of  familiar 
life,  and  to  those  accidents  of  time  and  place 
which  are  as  diversified  as  the  relations  of  man 
to  man,  and  which  assume  all  the  varieties  of 
physical  and  moral  predicament,  it  may  be  that 
upon  them  religion  has  no  specific  or  necessary 


120         THE  SCRIPTURAL  MODEL  OF  A 

influence ;  but  if  we  regard  the  basis  of  polite- 
ness,  urbanity  of  temper,  suavity  of  disposition, 
and  charity  of  heart,  we  acknowledge  the  true 
gentleman  to  be  the  proper  product  of  Christian 
discipline,  and  that  Scriptural  holiness  is  the 
mirror  before  which  his  character  must  be 
dressed,  to  come  forth  to  the  world  in  the  dignity 
of  its  appropriate  adornment. 

In  looking  to  this  origin  of  the  Christian  gen- 
tleman, we  see  how  necessary,  to  the  right  con- 
stitution of  his  character,  is  the  purity  of  the 
source  from  which  it  springs; — the  dew  of  its 
birth  is  of  the  womb  of  the  morning,  fresh  and 
sparkling  with  spiritual  graces.  The  dignity  of 
iiis  descent  declares  itself  in  his  aspect ;  and  his 
bearine  shows  him  to  be  of  the  family  of  Christ ; 
the  tokens  of  his  brotherhood  are  joy  and  peace, 
and  all  that  lights  up  the  believer's  countenance : 
he  moves  a  king  and  a  priest  by  divine  right  and 
celestial  ordination :  the  fashions  of  the  world 
are  at  his  feet,  as  mists  at  the  base  of  Lebanon ; 
they  come  and  go,  gather  and  disappear,  while 
the  Christian's  heart  standeth  fast  and  believeth 
in  the  Lord:  every  movement  expresses  the 
beauty  of  holiness,  and  gives  form  and  body  to 
virtue:  his  exterior  tells  of  inward  order:  he 
speaks  before  he  utters  his  voice,  and  every  tone 
and  gesture  borrows  a  grace  from  a  deep  and 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  121 

never-failing  interior  supply :  the  charm  of  his 
deportment  depends  upon  a  principle  coeval 
with  our  being  and  co- extensive  with  our  nature. 

While  Christianity  existed  only  in  promise, 
Abraham  felt  its  influence,  and  in  his  reception 
of  the  heavenly  visitors  anticipated  the  Gospel 
in  the  elegance  of  its  morality.  With  the  same 
gracefulness  he  negotiated  for  the  cave  of  Mach- 
peiah  with  the  children  of  Heth.  Boaz  with 
equal  delicacy  threw  his  protection  around  the 
helpless  Ruth.  But  in  Paul  the  perfection  of 
Christian  refinement  was  developed.  Christ 
had  indeed  come,  and  given  us  a  new  command- 
ment; and  the  same  was  illustrated  by  the 
apostle  in  the  purest  spirit  of  its  practical  import. 

Paul,  before  his  conversion,  was  a  man  of 
blood  and  a  persecutor;  after  his  conversion  his 
mind  was  the  tabernacle  of  holy  love  and  hea- 
venly joy;  he  became  a  Christian  gentleman, 
formed  entirely  out  of  Christian  materials;  he 
retained  all  his  characteristic  perseverance,  but 
he  dropped  all  his  characteristic  violence.  Had 
his  walk  been  in  the  path  of  domestic  endear- 
ment, he  would  have  strewed  that  path  with 
flowers ;  had  he  lived  in  the  married  state,  his 
breast  would  have  beaten  with  its  tenderest 
anxieties ;  had  he  been  a  parent,  his  children 
would  have  felt  the  blessings  of  his  nurture  j 
11* 


122  THE  SCRIPTURAL  MODEL  OF  A 

had  he  mixed  in  familiar  life,  he  would  have 
largely  shared  and  dispensed  the  privileged 
pleasures  of  affectionate  intercourse.  These 
possibilities  of  earthly  felicity  expanded  with  his 
Christian  perfections;  but  his  lofty  vocation  to 
glory  held  all  his  capabilities  and  endowments 
in  sacred  captivity ;  bound  to  the  chariot  of  all- 
conquering  grace,  they  served  to  decorate  the 
triumphant  career  of  his  duty,  as  the  trophies 
and  spoils  of  a  crucified  world  and  a  subjugated 
nature.  In  this  subordinate  condition,  how 
they  wrought  in  his  bosom ;  how  they  softened 
his  intercourse  with  his  converts;  how  they 
tempered  his  sanguine  character;  how  they 
disposed  him  to  patience  under  persecution ;  to 
contentment  with  his  condition ;  to  consideration 
for  the  infirmities  of  the  fiesh ;  to  compliance 
with  things  indifferent ;  to  a  modest  appreciation 
of  himself;  to  delicacy  towards  others ;  to  charity 
of  judgment,  modesty  of  opinion,  respect  for 
authority,  and  numberless  other  graces  of  senti- 
ment and  conduct,  is  seen  in  the  only  book 
which  was  worthy  to  register  the  acts  and  cor- 
respondence of  this  surprising  person.  In  that 
faithful  repository,  contemplate  his  gentleness  to 
his  Corinthian  converts ;  his  godly  sorrow  for 
their  transgressions ;  his  joy  in  their  penitence : 
observe  his  touching  farewell  to  his  Ephesian 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN,  123 

friends:  hear  him  addressing  his  converts  of 
Philippi,  as  his  dearly  beloved  and  longed  for, 
and  exhorting  them  to  stand  fast  in  the  Lord ; 
and  beseeching  the  Christians  in  Rome  by  the 
mercies  of  God,  and  by  the  meekness  and  gen- 
tleness of  Christ :  attend  to  his  comforting  and 
gracious  manner  towards  the  Thessalonians  and 
the  converts  at  Rome :  consider  his  tender  in- 
tercession for  Onesimus :  remark  his  injunctions 
to  obey  authorities :  see,  throughout  his  corres- 
pondence, his  love  of  order,  his  peaceful  indus- 
try, and  his  loyal  submission  to  constituted 
authority :  and  see  also  the  practice  of  his  own 
lessons  in  his  conduct  towards  Ananias,  and 
before  Agrippa,  and  before  the  Roman  magis- 
tracy :  forget  not  his  holy  courage  and  magna- 
nimity in  the  face  of  danger — and  then  say,  O 
say,  in  whom  have  the  properties  of  a  gentleman 
been  more  fully  displayed?  where  have  "  bright 
thoughts,  clear  deeds,  constancy,  fidelity,  and 
generous  honesty,  the  gems  of  noble  minds," 
more  illustriously  shone  forth?  in  whose  mind 
has  the  beauty  of  regulated  affections  more 
amiably  manifested  itself?  in  whose  manners 
has  dignity  been  so  combined  with  humility, 
greatness  with  condescension,  learning  with 
simplicity  ? 
Never  were  circumstances  accumulated  around 


124         THE  SCRIPTURAL  MODEL  OF  A 

the  mind  of  a  man  so  calculated  of  themselves  to 
beget  enthusiasm,  and  to  disturb  the  balance  of 
the  understanding;  and  yet  never  has  there 
lived  the  man  in  whom  sobriety  was  more  con- 
spicuous. Never  has  there  lived  a  man  whose 
natural  temperament  was  so  easy  to  be  excited, 
or  whose  warmth  of  feeling  subjected  him  to 
more  violent  emotions;  but  what  man  has  been 
more  distinguished  for  moderation?  Shining 
with  graces  and  gifts,  he  saw  in  himself  little 
else  than  the  infirmities  of  nature  and  the  need 
of  pardon.  In  others,  it  was  his  joy  and  his 
consolation  to  discern  the  beginnings  of  that 
holiness  of  which  his  modest  spirit  prevented 
him  from  seeing  the  accomplishment  in  himself: 
his  distrust  of  his  own  sufficiency  was  in  the 
same  degree  with  his  trust  in  the  mercy  of  God ; 
and  by  bringing  his  own  title  in  continual  com- 
parison with  the  merits  of  the  Saviour,  he  drew 
from  his  conscious  weakness  perpetual  supplies 
of  strength ;  from  the  renunciation  of  his  own 
deserts  a  foretaste  of  his  great  reward;  from 
present  crosses  an  earnest  of  triumphant  bliss; 
and  from  bonds,  imprisonment,  and  the  loss  of 
all  things,  the  expectation  of  an  eternal  weight  of 
gloFy.  So  chastened,  so  exercised,  so  endowed, 
so  in  harmony  with  man,  so  in  communion  with 
God,  the  character  of  St.  Paul  lias  realized  the 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  125 

conception  of  that  bright  exemplar  which  has 
been  rather  desiderated  than  described  in  the 
foregoing  pages.  In  him,  the  union  of  Christian 
soundness  with  essential  politeness  has  com- 
pleted the  lineaments  and  furnished  the  model 
of  that  humble  and  heaven-taught  grace  of  de- 
portment, which  awes  while  it  delights,  purifies 
while  it  pleases,  and  is  at  once  in  favour  with 
God  and  man. 


126  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

SECTION  XVII. 

THE  SABBATH  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN 

Hitherto  the  view  taken  of  the  Christian 
gentleman  has  related  only  to  his  conduct  on 
ordinary  days,  or  the  days  in  which  his  own 
"work  is  in  progress :  there  is  yet  a  day  not 
touched  upon,  in  which  his  own  works  are  to 
be  suspended,  in  order  that  the  work  of  grace, 
or  God's  peculiar  work,  may  be  going  forward 
in  his  heart.  Happy  day  for  the  body  and  soul 
of  man !  The  world's  birthday ;  sign  of  an 
everlasting  covenant  between  God  and  his  faith- 
ful worshippers ;  day  of  Jehovah  and  his  crea- 
tion :  and  more  honourable  still  our  Christian 
Sabbath — the  birthday  of  the  spiritual  world  ; 
earnest  of  perpetual  rest ;  day  of  the  Lord,  and 
the  redemption  completed.  But,  happy  and 
honourable  as  is  this  hallowed  day,  man  has  not 
been  wanting  in  endeavours  to  dash  the  cup  of 
blessedness  from  his  lips.  He  has  been  solici- 
tous and  ingenious  to  discover  grounds  for  dis- 
puting the  import  and  obligation  of  one  of  the 
plainest  passages  in  the  Bible,  and  to  furnish 
himself  with  a  pretext  for  renouncing  a  gift  of 
God  so  full  of  grace  and  mercy,  that  none,  save 


•       CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  127 

the  gift  of  himself  in  his  mysterious  work  of 
redemption,  may  be  compared  with  it.  Man 
has  been  studious  to  dissever  a  ligament  de- 
signed to  hold  him  in  communion  with  heaven, 
and  to  let  in  the  torrents  of  a  polluted  world 
upon  that  little  spot  where  our  Shepherd  calls 
us  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures,  and  repose 
beside  the  still  waters. 

"  On  the  seventh  day  God  ended  his  work 
which  he  had  made,  and  rested  the  seventh  day 
from  all  his  work  which  he  had  made;  and 
God  blessed  the  seventh  day,  and  sanctified  it ; 
because  that  in  it  he  had  rested  from  all  his 
work  which  he  had  made."  Thus  the  Sabbath 
was  instituted  at  the  close  of  the  creation,  and 
enjoined  upon  all  the  families  and  posterities  of 
the  earth  in  words  as  plain  as  language  affords. 
It  was  blessed,  and  appointed  to  be  kept  holy, 
or  set  apart  (as  the  Hebrew  may  be  read  ;)  and 
is  it  possible  for  an  unprejudiced  understanding 
to  doubt  of  the  perpetuity  of  the  obligation  ? 
How  can  a  boon  be  blessed  but  by  being  made 
a  lasting  source  of  good  to  follow  upon  the 
distinction  bestowed  ?  and  how  can  it  be  sanc- 
tified or  set  apart  but  by  a  continued  observance 
and  separation  ?  and  when  was  an  observance 
to  end  which  equally  appertained  and  appertains 
to  man^  in  every  generation  ?     Is  it  a  natural 


128  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

inference,  that  a  solemnity  ordained  by  God  to 
lead  his  creatures  to  consider  the  excellency  of 
his  works,  and  his  goodness  towards  them,  was 
intended  to  be  less  durable  than  the  relation 
between  the  creature  and  his  Creator?  If  the 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  as  Christ  himself 
has  declared,  for  whom,  or  for  what  period  was 
it  not  made  ? 

When  we  find  such  a  man  as  Dr.  Paley,  in 
his  anxiety  to  avoid  the  plain  and  palpable 
meaning  of  the  second  and  third  verses  of  the 
second  chapter  of  Genesis,  maintaining  that,  as 
the  passage  does  not  say  that  Jehovah  then 
'blessed  and  sanctified  the  seventh  day,  but  only 
that  he  blessed  and  sanctified  it  because  he 
rested  from  all  his  work,  the  Hebrew  historian 
alluded  by  anticipation  to  the  Jewish  Sabbath, 
we  can  no  longer  wonder  at  any  triumph  of 
subtlety  over  sense,  or  of  vanity  over  judgment. 

But  the. Pentateuch  is  silent  on  the  subject 
of  the  sabbatical  observance  by  the  patriarchs ; 
"  wherefore,"  says  Dr.  Paley,  '*  it  is  to  be  in- 
ferred that  no  such  observance  existed ;  and  we 
are  led  to  the  presumption  that,  previous  to  the 
departure  of  the  Israelites  out  of  Egypt,  the 
Sabbath  was  not  an  appointed  solemnity.' '  He 
admits  that  the  institution  was  in  existence  before 
the  promulgation  of  the  tables ;  being  expressly 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  129 

mentioned  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Exodus, 
in  relation  to  the  manna,  which  was  not  found 
on  the  seventh  day :  but  then  he  says  the  men- 
tion of  the  Sabbath  in  that  place  does  not  imply 
the  revival  of  an  ancient  institution.  Strange 
argument!  Was  it  of  course  to  advert,  by 
express  mention,  to  the  ancient  institution  ?  and 
does  not  the  manner  in  which  the  mention  of 
the  Sabbath  is  there  introduced,  almost  con- 
clusively show  that  the  institution  was  recog- 
nised as  previously  existing?  or  would  not  the 
words  of  Moses,  instead  of  being  simply  "  To- 
morrow is  the  rest  of  the  holy  Sabbath  of  the 
Lord,"  have  been  such  as  to  import  a  new 
command,  accompanied  by  reasons  for  the  ap- 
pointment of  the  solemnity  ? 

In  the  twenty-eighth  and  twenty-ninth  verses 
of  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Exodus,  we  also  read 
that  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  "  How  long 
refuse  ye  to  keep  my  commandments  and  my 
laws  ?  See,  for  that  the  Lord  hath  given  you 
the  Sabbath."  From  which  expressions  Dr. 
Paley  infers,  that  the  Sabbath  was  first  instituted 
in  the  wilderness;  and  it  seems  unaccountable 
to  him,  that  if  it  had  been  instituted  immediately 
at  the  close  of  the  creation,  and  had  been  ob- 
served from  that  time  to  the  departure  of  the 
Israelites  out  of  Egypt,  it  should  not  have  been 
12 


ISO  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

mentioned  or  alluded  to  during  the  whole  bib- 
lical account  of  that  period.  But  could  Dr. 
Paley  doubt  that  circumcision,  the  sign  of 
God's  covenant  with  Abraham,  was  in  perpetual 
observance  during  the  patriarchal  period  ?  and 
yet  where  is  there  any  express  mention  thereof, 
from  the  settlement  of  the  Israelites  in  the  Pro- 
mised Land  to  the  coming  of  the  Lord  Christ? 
Nor  is  the  Sabbath  itself  once  mentioned  in  the 
books'  of  Joshua,  Judges,  Ruth,  Samuel,  and 
first  of  Kings,  though  its  existence  as  an  insti- 
tution, in  full  observance,  during  the  period 
comprised  in  that  portion  of  sacred  story,  will, 
it  is  presumed,  be  undisputed. 

These  few  arguments  are  here  noticed,  as 
affording  a  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which, 
by  some  unaccountable  obliquity  of  the  will, 
even  great  and  estimable  persons  have  been  led 
to  bring  obvious  passages  into  controversy  and 
doubt,  which,  in  their  natural  sense,  are  the 
vehicles  of  blessings  and  privileges,  and  gracious 
testimonies  of  divine  favour. 

The  Sabbath  was  blessed  and  set  apart,  when 
man,  the  object  of  it,  was  formed  ;  and  the  an- 
cient decree  was  repeated  and  confirmed,  when 
the  voice  of  Jehovah  established  the  polity  of 
his  people  Israel.  The  command,  coeval  with 
the  world's  origin,  and  for  the  abridgment  of 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  131 

which  no  reason  can  be  assigned,  was  emphati- 
cally enjoined  upon  that  peculiar  people,  for 
'whose  use,  and  for  separating  whom  to  himself, 
the  Lord  was  pleased  to  construct  an  exclusive 
system  of  government.  It  was  the  great  pri- 
meval purpose  of  the  institution  that  God  should 
be  specially  remembered,  and  his  goodness 
towards  his  creatures  recorded  by  the  dedication 
to  him  and  his  worship  of  one  day  in  seven.  It 
was  meant  to  be  a  treasury  of  sacred  recollec- 
tions, receiving  fresh  accessions  as  the  gracious 
dispensations  of  divine  benevolence  advanced 
in  the  sequel  of  his  providence,  the  first  in  order 
being  the  wonders  of  creation.  The  people  of 
Israel  being  distinguished  by  special  acts  of 
favour,  had  subjects  of  grateful  reminiscence 
peculiar  to  themselves  :  they  were  commanded, 
therefore,  to  remember  the  Sabbath  day,  to 
keep  it  holy  ;  for  such,  according  to  Dr.  Ken- 
nicot,  is  the  proper  translation :  they  were  to 
make  it  commemorative  of  their  deliverance 
from  Egyptian  tyranny,  by  revolving  in  their 
minds  on  that  day  the  goodness  of  their  God, 
"  who  had  redeemed  them  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt,  and  out  of  the  house  of  bondage." 
(Deut.  v.  15.)  Our  motives  to  gratitude,  stili 
accumulating  with  time,  have  at  length  attained 
the  measure  of  their  fulness  in  the  mystery  of 


132  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

our  redemption  by  the  Son  of  God  in  the  flesh  : 
and  as  by  this  sacrifice  an  eternal  Sabbath  has 
been  prepared  for  the  people  of  God,  the  day 
which  has  been  made  illustrious  by  that  achieve- 
ment has  been,  with  the  sanction  of  him  who 
is  Lord  of  the  Sabbath,  put  in  the  place  of  the 
Jewish  Sabbath,  whereby  the  primitive  and 
substantial  obligation  to  keep  one  day  in  seven 
especially  holy  was  confirmed,  and  its  moral 
perpetuity  established. 

The  argument  for  the  observance  of  the  Sab- 
bath is  happily  not  a  long  one ;  and  most  happy 
is  it  for  the  human  race,  that  God  has  proclaimed 
his  will,  in  this  respect,  in  terms  not  to  be  mis- 
taken. He  has  sanctified  it,  or,  in  other  words, 
commanded  it  to  be  kept  holy  by  the  eldest  of 
all  his  mundane  institutions;  but  man,  by  a 
gratuitous  construction,  has  sought  to  bring 
down  the  ordinance  from  that  lofty  position 
from  which  it  overlooks  the  world,  to  the  date 
and  level  of  the  Hebrew  economy,  and  to  cir- 
cumscribe it  within  the  scope  and  limit  of  a 
defunct  dispensation.  This  he  does  by  a  con- 
struction depending  upon  the  assumption  tha  t 
the  book  of  Genesis  was  not  composed  until 
after  the  promulgation  of  the  law  ;  for  if  Moses 
used  the  words,  "  and  God  blessed  the  seventh 
day,  and  sanctified  it,"  by  a  prolepsis,  the  law 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  133 

enjoining  the  observance  on  the  Israelites  must 
have  been  given  them  before  those  words  were 
written ;  a  point  no  where  established  or  coun- 
tenanced, and  therefore,  wholly  a  gratuitous  as- 
sumption. And  why  assumed  ?  On  the  ground 
only  that  the  inference  drawn  from  the  silence 
of  the  Pentateuch  respecting  the  fact  of  the 
sabbatical  observance  in  the  patriarchal  ages 
must  otherwise  be  abandoned ;  but  the  infer- 
ence is  unsound,  and  therefore  the  proleptical 
construction  has  neither  necessity  to  excuse  it, 
nor  fact  to  support  it. 

But  let  the  original  sanction  of  the  Sabbath 
be  taken  away,  in  compliment  to  this  reasoning, 
infirm  as  it  is,  and  let  it  date  no  higher  than 
the  tables  of  the  law.     It  there  stands  in  the 
midst  of  a  code,  entirely  distinguished  from  the 
perishable  ritual  of  the  people  to  whom  it  was 
propounded ;  a  code  grounded  deep  in  nature 
and   necessity ;    a  code  of  moral  universality, 
proceeding   immediately   from   the   mouth   of 
Jehovah,  amidst  an  awful  scene  of  magnificence 
and  terror,  and  recognised  as  subsisting  in  per- 
petual obligation  by  Christ  himself;  and  by  an 
apostle,  who  quotes  the  commandment  next  in 
order,  as  the  first  commandment  with  promise ; 
thus  adverting  to  their  arrangement  in  the  deca- 
logue; and  by  another  apostle,  who  declares^ 
12* 


134  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

"  that  whosoever  shall  keep  the  whole  law,  and 
yet  offend  in  one  point,  is  guilty  of  all ;  for  he 
that  said,  do  not  commit  adultery,  said  also,  do 
not  kill." 

Is  the  decalogue  then,  which  has  been  so 
carefully  kept  by  itself  through  the  whole  period 
of  the  Jewish  history,  to  be  regarded  as  a  part 
of  the  ceremonial  law  ?  Is  a  system  of  ordin- 
ances, having  all  the  characters  of  immutability, 
and  twice  written  by  the  finger  of  Almighty 
God  on  tables  of  stone,  to  be  regarded  as  in  the 
same  predicament  with  a  temporary  compilation 
of  institutes,  intended  only  to  preserve  God's 
people  from  idolatrous  communication  and  in- 
termixture, and  to  shadow  forth  the  mysteries 
of  future  grace  and  glory  ?  and  if  not,  was  the 
totality  and  integrity  of  that  great  record,  con- 
secrated, by  its  position  within  the  ark,  in  the 
holy  of  holies,  to  be  mutilated  and  defaced  by 
rhe  obliteration  of  one  of  its  commandments  ? 
Who  shall  profane  that  sacred  enclosure,  but 
he  enemy  of  God  and  man  ? 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  135 


SECTION  XVIII. 

THE  SAME  SUBJECT,  UNDER  THE  CHRISTIAN 
DISPENSATION. 

One  day  in  seven,  as  a  day  of  sacred  rest, 
and  as  a  day  of  commemoration,  was  given  to 
the  first  man  and  his  posterities ;  was  given  to 
the  children  of  Israel ;  and  was  given  in  promise 
to  the  Gentile  world,  to  celebrate  therein  the 
successive  wonders  of  Jehovah's  love,  the  crea- 
tion of  a  glorious  world,  and  the  restoration  of 
its  fallen  inhabitants,  with  all  the  intermediate 
preparatives  and  disclosures  of  Divine  Mercy. 
Christ's  resurrection  and  return  to  glory  com- 
pleted the  stupendous  work  of  grace,  and  opened 
the  prospect  of  an  eternal  Sabbath,  wrought  by 
a  work  of  love  ineffable ;  whereby  it  was  reveal- 
ed, that  "  there  remaineth  a  rest  for  the  people 
of  God,  into  which  he  that  is  entered  hath 
ceased  from  his  works,  as  God  did  from  his." 
Thus  the  Christian  Sabbath  hath  not  abrogated 
the  Sabbath  of  the  Jews,  but  taken  it  into  itself, 
as  a  law  of  immutable  obligation ;  not  indeed 
by  an  express  recorded  appointment,  but  by  the 
sanction  of  our  Lord's  own  blessed  example, 
by  apostolical   practice,   and   by  a   continued 


136  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

stream  of  observance,  which  has  flowed  through 
all  ages  of  the  church  to  the  present  time. 

Christ  came  not  "  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil," 
and  hath  declared,  that  "  till  heaven  and  earth 
pass,  one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass 
from  the  law,  till  all  be  fulfilled.  Whosoever 
therefore  shall  break  one  of  these  least  com- 
mandments, and  shall  teach  men  so,  he  shall  be 
called  the  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
(Matt.  v.  17—19.)  And  if  the  Sabbath  be  con- 
sidered as  a  type  of  the  heavenly  rest  of  the 
people  of  God,  as  long  as  the  anti-type  is  de- 
ferred, or  in  progress  to  its  accomplishment,  the 
type  must  necessarily  continue.  The  Sabbath 
has  been  circumstantially  changed — changed  as 
to  the  day,  and  changed  as  to  some  of  those 
rigid  observances  which  belonged  to  the  Jewish 
ritual ;  but  adopted  and  confirmed  in  substance, 
as  the  day  indicative  of  that  consummate  rest 
which  Christ  has  purchased  for  his  redeemed, 
and  to  which  he,  led  the  way  by  his  own  triumph 
over  tribulation  and  death.  It  was  in  Christ 
Jesus  that  every  commandment  of  the  decalogue 
was  first  spiritualized,  and  then  fulfilled;  and, 
therefore,  all  wait  upon  him  and  his  righteous 
dominion :  they  belong  to  his  kingdom  of  grace, 
to  which  they  look  for  their  perfection  and 
judicial  satisfaction.     In  his  person  all  holiness 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  137 

has  been  completed,  and  to  him,  therefore,  the 
Sabbath  of  the  Lord  is  most  appropriately  con- 
secrated and  devoted.  It  was  on  the  Sunday 
that  the  disciples  first  assembled  after  our  Lord's 
crucifixion,  when  Christ  appeared  in  the  midst 
of  them ;  and  again,  on  the  firsjt  day  of  the  suc- 
ceeding week,  "  came  Jesus,  the  doors  being 
shut,  and  stood  in  the  midst,  and  said,  Peace 
be  unto  you."*  On  this  day  the  Holy  Ghost 
descended  with  his  commission  from  the  risen 
Redeemer.  On  this  day,  "  being  the  first  day 
of  the  week,  the  disciples  came  together  to  break 
bread,  and  Paul  preached  unto  them,  and  con- 
tinued his  speech  until  midnight."  (Acts  xx.  7.) 
St.  John  was  in  the  spirit  on  the  "  Lord's  day," 
(Rev.  i.  10.)  and  this  day  was  familiar  to  the 
primitive  followers  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  as  his 
day ;  a  day  for  social  prayer,  for  the  celebration 
of  the  holy  communion,   and  for  assembling 

*  The  Jews,  in  computing  time  from  one  day  to  another,  reckoned 
the  days  inclusively ;  therefore,  eight  days  from  the  first  day  of  the 
week,  would  be  again  the  first  day  of  the  week  following;  and 
"  after  eight  days,"  according  to  the  common  phraseology  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament,  is  to  be  taken  in  the  same  sense  as  in 
eight  days,  or  on  the  eighth  day.  Thus,  "  after  three  days,  I  will 
rise  again/'  Matthew  xxvii.  63.  And,  "  after  three  days  they  found 
him  in  the  temple,"  Luke  ii.  46.  "  Come  again  unto  me  after  three 
days,"  2  Chron.  x,  5;  "  and  the  people  came  to  Rehoboam  on  tho 
third  day,  as  the  king  bade,"  ib  12.  In  all  which  instances  the 
phrase  imports,  "  on  the  third  day,"  including  the  day  from  which 
*he  reckoning  dates, 


138  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

together  in  religious  conference ;   a  day  alto- 
gether holy  unto  the  Lord. 

The  title  then  of  this  first  day  of  the  week  is 
established,  on  the  virtual  authority  of  Christ 
and  his  apostles.  It  is  furthermore  confirmed 
by  the  constant*  usage  of  Christians  from  the 
earliest  times.  The  voice  of  antiquity  has  de- 
clared for  it;  the  trumpet  of  time  has  proclaimed 
it ;  it  has  been  the  subject  of  positive  enactment, 
and  the  offering  of  solemn  dedication.  It  is  the 
clay  of  the  Lord  by  right  of  acquisition ;  and 
admitting  it  only  to  be  set  apart  by  the  Church 
and  human  ordinance,  is  it  for  man  to  resume 
the  gift,  and  cancel  the  surrender  ?  If  the  first 
converts  of  the  Gospel,  with  whom  the  faith  and 
practice  of  the  Church  were  in  their  purest  ex- 
ercise, observed  the  first  day  of  the  week  as  a 
day  separated  and  hallowed,  and  if,  in  all  suc- 
ceeding times,  this  day  has  been  recognised  as 
the  resurrection-day  of  the  Lord  Christ,  what 
want  we  more  to  fix  the  duty  of  keeping  it  holy 
upon  our  reason,  our  gratitude,  and  our  con- 
science ?  All  Christian  antiquity  rings  with  the 
sacred  sound  of  the  Lord's  day.  The  celebrated 
letter  of  Pliny  to  Trajan  remarks  the  assembling 
of  the  Christian  converts  on  a  stated  day,  to 
sing  hymns  to  Christ  as  God.  Ignatius,  Justin 
Martvr,  Irenaeus,  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  Ter» 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  139 

tullian,  Origen,  St,  Cyprian,  Eusebius,  Atha- 
nasius,  Epiphanius,  Basil,  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
Chrysostom,  Hilary,  *  Ambrose,  Jerome,  and 
Augustin,  have  record  d  the  dedication  of  the 
Sunday  among  Christians  to  the  Great  Captain 
of  our  Salvation,  who,  on  that  day,  conquered 
death  and  the  grave.  It  is  the  Lord's  day  by 
right  of  prescription  and  long  possession ;  for  if 
these  are  the  foundations  of  the  titles  of  men,  in 
respect  of  their  enjoyments  and  privileges,  shall 
we  dispute  with  Christ  the  dominion  of  a  day, 
which,  from  the  oldest  period  of  recorded  usage, 
has  had  his  name  and  seal  upon  it  ?  Let  it  be 
that  we  have  given  it  to  him,  and  that  his  right 
rests  only  on  the  vow  of  a  human  offering ;  it  is 
an  offering,  and  not  to  be  recalled,  but  by  pro- 
fanation and  sacrilege. 

But  it  has  been  consecrated  by  Christ  and 
his  Church  as  our  Christian  Sabbath  ;  a  season 
of  seclusion  from  secular  cares,  employments, 
and  pleasures.  It  has  been  substituted  in  the 
place  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  and  cannot  be  less 
holy  in  all  substantial  solemnities.  With  less 
of  ritual  rigour,  it  has  more  of  vital  sanctity.  If 
it  was  expected  of  the  Jew,  that  he  should  "  call 
the  Sabbath  a  delight,  the  holy  of  the  Lord, 
honourable ;  that  he  should  honour-it,  not  doing 
his  own  ways,  nor  finding  his  own  pleasure,  nor 


140  THE.  SABBATH  OP  TI^E 

speaking  his  own  words  ;'*  is  not  the  claim  of 
the  Christian  Sabbath  to  the  Christian's  devo- 
tion, if  possible,  more  urgent  and  imperative  ?  or 
is  its  holy  integrity  of  service  and  employment 
less  pledged  and  bespoken  ?  The  whole  day 
is  the  Lord's ;  and  he  who  approaches  it  and 
honours  it  as  such,  shall  be  more  than  "  fed 
with  the  heritage  of  Jacob  ;*'  he  shall  inherit  the 
promises  of  the  spiritual  Israel. 

The  Lord's  day  is  not  only  sanctified  but 
blessed  :  it  is  abounding  with  benefits  to  man. 
To  have  one  day  in  seven  set  apart  and  seques- 
tered from  the  travail  and  tumult  of  the  week, 
allotted  for  a  closer  communion  with  God  and 
the  record  of  his  revealed  will,  is  a  privilege 
which  every  pious  soul  knows  how  to  value; 
and  is  it  not  obvious,  if  we  regard  the  bulk  of 
mankind,  that  without  a  returning  season  of 
religious  service  and  the  stated  recurrence  of 
sacred  administrations,  multitudes  would  be 
wholly  destitute  of  religious  habits  and  impres- 
sions ?  As  no  habit  can  be  formed,  so  neither 
can  the  religious  habit  be  formed,  without  stated 
periods  of  renewal.  What  may  be  done  on  any 
day,  if  it  is  to  be  done  with  effort,  will  soon  be 
done  on  no  day,  at  least  by  the  larger  portion 
of  mankind. 

Such  is  eminently  the  case  with  respect  to 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  141 

national  habits.  Such  is  their  flux  and  migra- 
tory character,  that  they  require  to  be  fixed  and 
embodied  in  our  permanent  institutions,  or  they 
speedily  vanish.  But  even  the  stated  services 
can  effect  but  little  towards  perpetuating  a  re- 
ligious habit,  if  the  tone  of  mind,  instead  of 
being  sustained  throughout  the  day,  is  to  be 
subjected  to  the  counterworking  influence  of 
secular  employments,  whether  of  business  or 
recreation.  If  the  day  be  divided  between  re- 
ligious duties,  and  the  thoughts,  and  cares,  and 
pleasures  of  the  world,  it  is  evident  to  the  least 
penetrating,  that  the  Lord's  day  will  soon  be- 
come a  merely  nominal  title.  In  essence  and 
effect  the  total  day  will  soon  belong  to  our  un- 
renewed nature,  and  pass  under  the  dominion 
of  a  devouring  depravity.  When  an  inroad  is 
made  upon  the  Sabbath,  no  barrier  line  can  stop 
the  progress  of  desecration.  One  practice  of 
disrespect  gives  birth  to  another,  encroachment 
follows  encroachment,  till  the  queen  of  days  is 
stripped  of  her  diadem,  and  mingled  with  the 
crowd  and  riot  of  the  week. 

Still  there  are  those  who  think,  or  affect  to 
think,  that  neither  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth, 
nor  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  has  any  thing  more 
to  do  with  the  Sunday  than* to  receive  the  hom- 
age of  a  periodical  service.  According  to  them, 
13 


142  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

the  scriptural  injunction,  to  keep  holy  the  Sab* 
bath  day,  is  to  be  taken  with  reference  to  that 
part  only  which  is  allotted  to  be  spent  in  church. 
The  rest  of  the  day  belongs,  as  they  think,  to 
man's  dominion,  whether  for  gain  or  gaiety, 
business  or  pastime,  pomp  or  dissipation.  They 
see  neither  profit  in  pious  discourse,"  nor  beauty 
in  family  instruction.  In  the  interval  between 
the  morning  and  evening  solemnities,  when  the 
public  orisons  have  ceased,  the  voice  from  the 
sanctuary  invites  them  in  vain  to  continue  in 
holy  exercise ;  the  silent  summons  is  disregard- 
ed, that  calls  them  to  converse  with  God ;  no 
whisper  in  the  stillness  of  the  Sabbath  evening 
refreshes  their  souls  with  intimations  of  mercy 
from  above ;  no  duty  of  self-inquiry  shuts  the 
door  of  their  minds  upon  a  carnal  world,  till  the 
day  is  closed  in  peace.  God  has  a  stint  allowed 
him  for  appointed  service ;  the  residue  of  the 
day  is  challenged  by  his  creatures  as  their  own, 
to  use  or  abuse. 

Many  and  various  are  the  causes,  proximate 
and  remote,  which  involve  the  destinies  of  states 
and  empires.  Many  operate  unobserved,  by  a 
train  of  silent  consequences  ;  some  by  decided, 
some  by  ambiguous  influence ;  some  by  slow 
results,  some  by  rapid  development,  some 
through  the  passions,  some  through  the  under- 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  ]  43 

standing,  some  by  physical,  some  by  moral 
agency ;  but  in  the  history  of  every  nation,  some 
ascendant  cause  usually  takes  the  lead,  and 
works  with  a  preponderating  influence,  control- 
ling the  issues  of  events  in  a  course  of  aggran- 
dizement or  depression.  In  the  great  career  of 
this  nation,  the  consecration  of  the  Sabbath  has 
been  the  basis  of  our  peculiar  glory.  Here  only, 
and  principally  within  the  pale  of  our  national 
church,  the  day  of  the  Lord  has  been  proclaimed 
a  day  of  thorough  sanctity,  in  its  entire  length. 
Throughout  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  chiefly 
where  the  Roman  superstition  has  relaxed  the 
hold  of  vital  faith,  the  Sunday  has  been  divided 
between  God  and  man ; — a  brief  ceremonial  part 
being  given  to  Jehovah ;  the  total  remainder — 
alas !  how  much  the  larger  portion  ! — being 
covered  by  the  claims  of  this  present  world  and 
its  importunate  interests. 


144  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 


SECTION  XIX. 

THE  NATIONAL  CONSECRATION  OF  THE  SABBATH. 

Of  all  our  privileges,  the  distinction  of  this 
sacred  day  is  the  most  important  in  a  political 
view.  It  involves  not  merely  our  character, 
but  our  existence,  as  a  great  nation.  On  this 
day  the  soul  is  recruited  from  the  fountain  of 
spiritual  life;  all  things  appear  to  disclose  their 
beginnings,  and  remount  to  the  First  Great 
Cause;  the  poor  are  lifted  out  of  the  mire,  to 
be  set  among  princes;  the  Lord  reigneth  in 
special  majesty,  and,  to  the  multitude  of  the 
Isles,  it  is  a  day  of  gladness;  righteousness 
looketh  down  from  heaven,  and  on  this  blessed 
day  Jehovah  speaketh  peace  unto  his  people, 
and  to  his  saints.  Great  day  of  gifts  and  graces ! 
in  which  the  wanderer  is  invited  back  to  his 
paternal  home;  and  the  child  of  disobedience  is 
reminded  of  his  debt  of  love;  his  roving  heart 
is  silently  reclaimed,  and  with  gentle  force  ar- 
rested and  constrained ;  his  hopes  and  fears  are 
directed  to  their  proper  centre;  wrath  and  emu- 
lation, and  the  strife  of  tongues,  are  commanded 
to  be  still;  with  the  returns  of  sacred  service 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  145 

fresh  impulses  of  gratitude  are  imparted;  new 
channels  of  thought  are  opened;  men  come 
before  each  other  with  improved  appearance, 
and  an  increase  of  mutual  respect;  the  noise  of 
rustic  labour  and  the  din  of  the  anvil  are  sus- 
pended; the  shops  and  marts  pour  forth  a 
comparatively  peaceful  population;  cleanliness 
brightens  the  countenance,  and  the  sweat  is 
wiped  from  the  brow;  such,  in  short,  is  the 
value  of  this  day  to  man,  that  his  great  spiritual 
enemy  has  no  shorter  way  of  compassing  his 
ends  against  his  soul  and  body,  than  by  per- 
suading him  to  give  ear  to  those  unsanctified 
arguments,  which  would  diminish  ought  of  the 
sacred  rest,  and  solemn  dedication  of  the  Sabbath 
of  the  Lord. 

This  day  is  the  nursling  of  the  Church  of 
England ;  she  hides  it  in  her  bosom,  and  hushes 
it  to  repose.     She  will  give  it  into  the  hands, 
neither  of  the  Jew,  the  Papist,  nor  the  Puritan, 
still  less  will  she  cast  it  upon  the  world,  to  be 
baptized  and  nurtured  in  its  temporizing  princi- 
ples and  lax  observances.     The  ordinance  of 
the  Sabbath  is  with  her  as  fixed  as  the  firmament, 
She  enjoins  on  this  day  the  "  mirth  of  the  tabret 
to  cease,"  and  the  roll  of  idle  vehicles,  and  all 
commotion,  whether  of  business  or  pleasure,  to 
be  suspended,  that  wearied  nature  may  have  lei 
13* 


146  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

sure  to  listen  to  its  great  Author.  While  she 
throws  aside  all  burdensome  rites,  she  tells  us 
in  her  Homilies,  that  "  whatsoever  is  found  in 
this  commandment  (to  keep  the  Sabbath  day- 
holy,)  appertaining  to  the  law  of  nature,  as  a 
thing  most  godly,  most  just,  and  needful  to 
God's  glory,  ought  to  be  retained  and  kept  of 
all  good  Christian  people.  Therefore,  by  this 
commandment,  we  ought  to  have  a  time,  as  one 
day  in  the  week,  wherein  we  ought  to  rest,  yea, 
from  our  lawful  and  needful  works;"  and  again, 
"  God's  obedient  children  should  use  the  Sun- 
day holily,  and  rest  from  their  common  and 
daily  business,  and  also  give  themselves  wholly 
to  heavenly  exercises  of  God's  true  religion  and 
service." 

Thus  our  excellent  Church  dictates  to  her 
congregations  the  lessons  of  conservative  wis- 
dom. After  the  public  offices  of  religion  are 
ended,  she  makes  each  private  house  a  sanctuary, 
placing  the  children  and  servants  around  their 
natural  instructors  in  devout  communion;  or 
suggests  to  the  exercised  Christian  the  subjects 
of  devout  meditation.  We  trust,  that  though 
the  tides  of  business  and  amusement  sometimes 
threaten  her  with  destruction,  her  sanctuary,  with 
its  awful  precinct,  will  stand  till  the  Bridegroom 
comes;  and  that  her  faithful  worshippers  will, 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  147 

in  the  mean  time,  continue  to  keep  their  morn- 
ing and  evening  watch,  and  to  claim  with  un- 
ceasing earnestness  the  privileges  of  the  Sabbath, 
as  the  earliest  spiritual  gift  to  man,  and  the 
great  primeval  pledge  of  his  affiliation  and 
obedience. 


148  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 


SECTION  XX. 

THE  DEPORTMENT  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  GENTLE- 
MAN IN  THE  WORSHIP  OF  GOD  ON  THE  LORD'S 
DAY. 

If  what  has  been  said  be  true  of  the  Lord's 
day,  great  must  be  its  claims  upon  the  Christian 
gentleman.  It  must  needs  be  the  day  which 
he  delights  to  honour.  It  is  a  day  so  precious 
to  him,  that  he  rises  early  to  enjoy  it ;  he  is 
desirous  of  losing  no  part  of  it ;  his  intercourse 
with  God  may  have  been  often  interrupted, 
during  the  week  past,  by  care,  or  business,  or 
anxiety ;  limited  to  morning  and  evening  prayer, 
and  occasional  aspirations.  But  on  the  Sunday 
his  Christianity  is  concentrated.     'Krt  y*g  averts 

rov    vow    ctTTctyei    (tiro  rm    a,v6^u7rtvav    ct<r^oXijf^ccruv  rcvfo 

ovtus  vow  Tfexei  *-f«s  rev  &eiov.  The  chambers  of 
his  mind  are  swept  and  garnished,  to  give  recep- 
tion to  visitors  from  above — heavenly  thoughts 
and  blessed  communications  I  Sunday  is  the 
Christian  gentleman's  court-day  ;  the  day  of 
the  levy  of  the  King  of  kings;  he  meets  it  with 
his  freshest  looks,  and  greets  it  with  the  homage 
of  a  holy  courtesy :  not  only  do  worldly  occu- 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  149 

pations  cease  with  him,  but  worldly  cares  also ; 
he  feels  like  a  prisoner  coming  forth  from  his 
confinement  into  the  pure  untainted  atmosphere, 
with  the  whole  earth  for  his  floor,  and  the  sky 
for  his  canopy.  It  is  to  him  a  day  of  deliver- 
ance, release,  and  privilege,  in  which  his  feet 
are  "  set  in  a  large  room,"  and  his  spirit  "  re- 
freshed in  the  multitude  of  peace.',  His  de- 
meanour, therefore,  on  this  day,  more  than  on 
others,  is  chastised  and  subdued.  If,  on  other 
days,  God  has  had  much  of  his  thoughts,  on 
this  day  they  are  wholly  God's.  The  time 
before  church  on  the  Sunday  morning  is,  in  a 
Christian  gentleman's  family,  where  things  are 
ordered  as  they  should  be,  a  time  of  tranquil 
and  cheerful  preparation  for  the  holy  business 
of  the  day ;  tranquil,  because  the  thoughts  re- 
pose upon  God;  cheerful,  because  the  heart 
responds  to  the  invitations  of  the  Gospel;  and 
yet  it  is  a  time  of  godly  fear,  for  the  sinner  is 
about  to  enter  into  the  sanctuary  of  the  Lord, 
to  confess  upon  his  knees,  and  with  prostration 
of  soul,  his  entire  un worthiness. 

With  such  sentiments  and  impressions,  he 
feels  it  a  sacred  duty  to  be  in  church  some  time 
before  the  beginning  of  the  service,  to  recall 
those  "  dispersed  and  ungathered"  thoughts, 
which  have  been  roving  abroad  upon  their  tern- 


150  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

poral  errands  through  the  regions  of  sin,  within 
the  doors  and  vestibule  of  the  sanctuary.  The 
proper  prelude  to  prayer  is  silence ;  and  of  all 
practices  out  of  place  and  season,  that  of  talking 
in  church  is  the  most  egregious.  This  propriety 
the  heathen  worshipper  was  sensible  of.  When 
Telernachus  observed  to  his  father  that  some 
god  was  within,  the  wise  Ulysses  imposed  on 
the  youth  a  reverential  silence. 

Styx,  K&t  actTei  cov  ioov  le-^etvtt  f*n£*  ipntnt. 

O/.  t.  42. 

And  surely  when  the  Lord  is  in  his  holy 
temple,  all  within  should  keep  silence  until  the 
appointed  time  of  prayer  and  praise.  But  in 
our  Christian  churches  that  appointed  time  is 
just  the  time  when  silence  begins.  The  voice 
of  the  primitive  church,  which  was  wont  to 
break  forth  into  responses  that  shook  its  pillars, 
has  sunk  into  feeble  whispers,  or  inarticulate 
sounds,  or  unconcerned  and  fashionable  silence. 
This  ought  not  to  be  the  case  with  the  Christian 
gentleman :  he  has  a  part  in  the  service  assigned 
him  in  the  rubric,  and  dare  not  stand  out  in 
sacrilegious  silence  against  the  demand  so  so- 
lemnly made  upon  him :  he  judges  it  also  to 
be  a  mutilation  of  the  service,  and  a  spoiling  of 
its  sense  and  significance,  to  withhold  his  audible 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  151 

responses.*  Take,  for  example,  that  most  holy 
and  ineffably  beautiful  hymn,  called  the  Te 
Deum,  the  materials  of  which  are  divine,  and 
only  the  structure  human,  and  mark  how  the 
materials  are  marred  and  the  structure  decom- 
posed by  the  omission  of  the  responses ;  or  in 
other  words,  see  how  the  catenation  of  the  con- 
text is  broken,  and  its  links  scattered,  if  those 
passages  which  should  come  from  the  mouth  of 
the  congregation  are  suppressed  ;  unless  it  can 
be  considered  as  enough  to  preserve  this  essen- 
tial continuity  that  the  clerk,  after  his  manner, 
responds  to  the  minister.  This  beautiful  com- 
position, as  an  act  of  praise,  a  confession  of 
faith,  and  a  supplication  for  mercy,  belongs  to 
the  people  at  least  as  much  as  to  the  minister ; 
and  yet  in  many  churches  nothing  of  it  is  audibly 
uttered  but  what  the  necessity  of  official  engage- 

*  Besides  the  grateful  variety  which- is  given  to  the  devotion  of 
our  church  by  this  interchange  between  the  minister  and  his  con- 
gregation, the  part  which  the  people  have  to  sustain  keeps  their 
attention  profitably  engaged.  To  do  their  duty,  they  must  watch 
and  observe  their  minister,  in  order  to  be  ready  with  their  part  of 
the  duty.  They  must  be  upon  the  alert,  and  in  a  state  of  mind  in- 
compatible with  weariness  or  inattention.  "  Our  pious  ancestors," 
says  Dean  Comber,  "  may  make  our  devotion  blush,  when  we  see 
them  all  the  time  of  prayer  in  procinctu,  with  their  knees  bended, 
their  hands  uplifted,  and  their  eyes  fixed  on  their  minister.  If  ever 
this  devotion  is  to  be  restored  in  the  church,  it  must  be  by  the  people 
zealously  and  conscientiously  joining  in  these  pious  ejaculations 
allotted  to  them." 


152  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

ment  compels.  Thus  says  the  hymn,  M  The 
holy  church  throughout  all  the  world  doth  ac- 
knowledge thee;"  but  the  congregation  does 
not  appear  to  acquiesce  in  the  declaration,  nor 
are  the  subjects  of  this  acknowledgment,  except 
in  so  far  as  the  clergyman  and  clerk  are  con- 
cerned, distinctly  and  intelligibly  proclaimed. 

How  touchingly  does  the  minister  exclaim, 
"  When  thou  hadst  overcome  the  sharpness  of 
death,  thou  didst  open  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
to  all  believers."  And  shall  the  prayer  which 
follows  by  inference  from  that  beautiful  declara- 
tion be  kept  within  the  lips,  or  indistinctly 
muttered  ?  "  We  therefore  pray  thee,  help  thy 
servants,  whom  thou  hast  redeemed  with  thy 
precious  blood.^ 

Observe  also  the  structure  and  composition 
of  the  psalms.  Have  not  many  of  them  been 
considered  by  great  authority  to  be  dramatic 
odes,  consisting  of  dialogues  between  persons 
sustaining  certain  characters?  Are  they  not 
often  alternations  of  song  between  the  psalmist 
and  the  chorus,  or  Levitical  band?  or  sometimes 
between  Jehovah  himself  and  Christ  in  his  in- 
carnate state,  both  before  and  after  his  resurrec- 
tion, as  a  priest,  a  king,  and  a  conqueror?  And 
if  so,  will  the  sense  be  supplied ;  or  will  the 
composition  be  intelligible,  or  the  beauty,  or 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  153 

sublimity,  or  devotion  apparent,  when  the  part 
which  is  to  be  said  by  the  people  is  not  said 
out,  if  said  at  all,  the  lips,  perhaps,  giving  sign 
of  something  which  they  dare  not  or  care  not 
to  pronounce? 

The  ninety-fifth  psalm,  that  beautiful  intro- 
ductory part  of  the  service,  thus  begins  :  "  Oh 
come,  let  us  sing  unto  the  Lord,  let  us  heartily 
rejoice  in  the  strength  of  our  salvation  :"  to 
which  the  people  respond,  or  should  respond, 
"  Let  us  come  before  his  presence  with  thanks- 
giving, and  show  ourselves  glad  in  him  with 
psalms."  Can  this  second  verse  be  suitably 
pronounced  in  a  whisper?  Is  its  sense  only 
personal  to  the  individual,  or  is  it  the  language 
of  general  accord  and  holy  acclamation  ? 

Consider  the  texture  of  the  twenty-fourth 
psalm.  Does  the  priest  inquire,  "  Who  shall 
ascend  unto  the  hill  of  the  Lord  ?  or  who  shall 
rise  up  in  his  holy  place  ?"  And  shall  not  the 
people  answer  aloud,  "  Even  he  that  hath  clean 
hands,  and  a  pure  heart ;  and  that  hath  not  lift 
up  his  mind  unto  vanity,  nor  sworn  to  deceive 
his  neighbour?"  Can  a  devout  congregation 
be  dumb,  when  it  is  their  province  to  announce 
the  King  of  Glory  with  his  angelic  attendants  ? 
And  yet  all  this  is  usually  so  ;  and  will  continue 
to  be  so  until  Christian  gentlemen  will  collec- 
14 


1 54  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

tively  resolve  to  rouse  by  their  example  out 
Christian  congregations  from  this  torpid  indif- 
ference to  an  animated  execution  of  their  part 
in  the  worship  of  our  church.  Without  these 
audible  responses  on  the  part  of  the  congrega- 
tion, the  spirit  and  order  of  our  liturgy  are  lost. 
Without  them,  the  sequence  and  affinity  of 
related  passages  are  severed  and  suppressed. 
"  O  Lord,  open  thou  our  lips."  (Resp.)  "  And 
(then)  our  mouth  shall  show  forth  thy  praise." 
"  O  Lord,  make  speed  to  save  us."  (Resp.) 
"  O  Lord,  make  haste  to  help  us."  "  Praise 
ye  the  Lord."*  (Resp.)  "  The  Lord's  name 
be  praised."  "  O  God,  make  clean  our  hearts 
within  us."  (Resp.)  "  And  take  not  thy  Holy 
Spirit  from  us."     Again,   when  the   minister 

*  The  sense  of  the  Hebrew  Hallelujah  was  so  sacred  in  the 
original,  that  the  church  anciently  adhered  to  the  Hebrew  term; 
and  still  it  stands  in  many  of  our  Christian  hymns.  It  was  in  daily 
use  in  the  temple  service,  and  designated  the  Great  Hymn,  sung 
after  the  Passover,  composed  of  the  six  psalms,  from  the  1]  3th  to 
the  118th  inclusively.  Early  in  every  morning  was  the  Hallelujah 
sung  in  the  primitive  church  of  Christ;  and  from  Easter  to  Whit- 
sunday the  Christian  assemblies  of  old  resounded  with  the  same 
note  of  praise.  It  is  a  song  of  victory,  and  was  sung  by  the  saints 
of  the  Apocalypse  in  celebration  of  their  triumph.  (Rev.  xix.  1,  3, 
4,  6.)  "I  heard  as  it  were  the  voice  of  a  great  multitude,  and  as 
the  voice  of  many  waters,  and  as  the  voice  of  mighty  thunders,  say- 
ing, Alleluiah:  for  the  Lord  God  omnipotent  reigneth."  And  can 
an  English  congregation  of  Christians,  assembled  for  the  worship  o*' 
God,  when  their  minister  calls  to  them,  "  Praise  ye  the  Lord,"  refuse 
»"*  echo  back  the  strain,  "  The  Lord's  name  be  praised?" 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  155 

having,  in  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  (2  Thess.  iii. 
16.)  invoked  a  blessing  on  his  hearers,  saving, 
"  The  Lord  be  with  you :"  the  answer  to  which, 
in  the  words  of  the  liturgy,  (from  the  2  Tim. 
iv.  22.)  is,  "  And  with  thy  spirit :"  can  it  be 
doubted  that  it  is  an  imperative  duty  on  the 
people  to  speak  out  audibly  and  distinctly  what 
the  church  has  thus  put  into  their  mouths? 

The  confession  with  which  the  service  on  the 
people's  part  begins,  is  the  great  motive  to 
prayer — the  foundation-stone  of  the  edifice  of  a 
sinner's  hope.  It  is  of  little  importance  that  we 
should  tell  God  that  we  are  sinners :  he  knows 
we  are  sinners,  and  we  must  feel  ourselves  to 
be  such,  or  we  shall  pray  in  vain;  but  it  is 
expedient  in  social  prayer  that  our  supplications 
to  Heaven  should  stand  upon  the  general  cor- 
ruption of  our  nature,  and  the  fellowship  of  sin 
and  contrition;  and  if  a  general  acknowledgment 
is  to  be  made,  accompanied  by  a  general  humi- 
liation, it  is  not  easy  to  perceive  how  this  can 
be  done  but  by  a  community  of  heart  and  voice, 
and  an  open  avowal  and  publication  by  each 
before  others  of  his  own  sinful  estate  and  abject 
want  of  forgiveness.  But  if  confession  of  a 
common  corruption  should  be  thus  ostensible 
and  public,  profession  of  a  common  faith  should 
be  no  less  declared  and  avowed.     The  harmony 


156  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

and  sympathy  of  worship  require  it  to  be  so ; 
and  there  is  something  always  interesting  and 
instructive  in  the  spectacle  of  a  Christian  gentle- 
man, with  erect  and  decided  aspect,  testifying 
aloud  the  great  articles  of  his  belief,  and  the 
grounded  convictions  of  a  trusting  heart. 

As  our  liturgy  is  so  framed  as  to  call  imperi- 
ously upon  the  people  to  give  audible  utterance 
to  their  part  in  the  service,  so  does  it  call  upon 
the  minister  to  give  time  for  the  congregation 
to  finish  what  the  rubric  has  appointed  to  be 
answered  or  repeated  by  them  before  he  proceeds 
with  the  service.  It  is  scarcely  consistent  with 
the  decorum  of  good  manners,  much  less  with 
the  dignity  and  efficacy  of  our  forms  of  worship, 
so  to  tread  upon  the  heels  of  those  who  are 
endeavouring  to  respond  according  to  the  rubric, 
as  to  force  them  to  sacrifice  a  moiety  of  what 
they  had  to  say,  or  hurry  to  the  conclusion. 
There  is  an  impatience  in  this  proceeding,  which 
does  not  surprise  us  in  a  clergyman  who  treats 
his  function  as  a  task  to  be  dryly  and  technically 
performed;  but  it  is  a  perfect  solecism  in  the 
practice  of  a  spiritual  minister ;  it  is  a  blemish 
in  the  beauty  of  holiness;  a  fraud  upon  the 
liturgy ;  a  robbery  of  God,  who  has  a  right  to 
every  part  of  the  service,  whether  it  appertains 
to  the  minister  or  to  the  congregation ;  and  if 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  157 

the  contumacious  silence  of  a  congregation  is 
dangerous  on  their  part,  it  is  still  more  dangerous 
in  the  minister  of  God's  word  to  throw  any 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  their  return  to  their 
duty. 

It  is   sometimes  in  defence  of  this  sullen 
taciturnity  affirmed,  that  to  recite  aloud  any  part 
of  the  service  is  an  interruption  to  the  devotion 
of  others.      Fastidious,  unfounded  objection! 
fallaciously  set  up  in  opposition  to  the  spirit 
and  intention  of  all  social  worship.     No  true 
Christian  is  ever  disturbed  by  surrounding  de- 
votion; he  loves  to  breathe  the  atmosphere  of 
piety ;  nothing  is  more  delightful  to  him  than 
the  sympathy  of  sacred  sounds ;  the  companion- 
ship of  godly  affections ;  the  collective  strength 
of  prayer ;  the  chorus  of  praise ;  the  echoes  of 
inward  joy ;  the  music  of  disburdened  bosoms ; 
the  songs  of  secret  deliverance ;  to  feel  himself 
part  of  a  circumference  of  love  gathered  round 
a  common  centre  ;  and  to  be  placed  where  the 
magazines  of  private  sorrow,  comfort,  joy,  and 
hope,  are  all  emptied  into  the  common  stock 
of  the  blessed  company  of  all  faithful  people. 
Though  not  for  ostentation,  yet  for  profit  and 
edification,  Christians  should  let  their  light  shine 
before  others.     Within  the  camp  of  Christ's 
soldiers  there  may  be  allowed  to  be  some  stir ; 
14* 


158  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

some  notes  of  preparation ;  some  noise  of  arms. 
The  public  worship  of  God  was  never  meant  to 
be  cold,  or  mute,  or  sad,  or  dull;  it  should 
imitate  rather  the  angels  of  the  Apocalypse, 
falling  before  the  throne  on  their  faces,  saying, 
(and  surely  with  united  voices  and  loud  acclaim,) 
"  Amen.  Blessing,  and  glory,  and  wisdom, 
and  thanksgiving,  and  honour,  and  power,  and 
might,  be  unto  our  God,  for  ever  and  ever." 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  159 


SECTION  XXI. 

POSTURES  APPROPRIATE  TO  THE  SEVERAL 
PARTS  OF  THE  SERVICE. 

The  postures  prescribed  by  the  rubric,  the 
Christian  gentleman  will  be  scrupulous  to  main- 
tain. He  does  not  say,  with  the  psalmist,  "  Oh 
come,  let  us  worship,  and  fall  down,  and  kneel 
before  the  Lord  our  Maker;  let  us  fall  down 
low  on  our  knees  before  his  footstool,"  without 
honestly  intending  to  give  to  God  the  homage 
of  his  obedience.  And  yet  how  many  act  as  if 
by  "  Let  us  pray,"  were  meant  only,  as  far  as 
regards  themselves,  "  Let  us  all  sit  at  our  ease." 
Like  sacks  of  meal  in  a  row,  each  drops  into  his 
place,  with  a  look  of  indifference  to  the  business 
that  should  engage  all  the  interest  of  his  mind, 
and  most  actively  stir  his  affections.  No  Chris- 
tian gentleman,  unless  infirmity  compel  him, 
can  maintain  a  sitting  posture  during  the  praying 
part  of  the  church  service.  Can  sinful  man  at 
such  a  moment  sit  unconcerned,  or  sit  at  all,  in 
the  courts  of  his  palace,  to  whom  sin  is  so  hateful 
that  he  spared  not  to  make  his  Son  a  sacrifice 
to  his  offended  holiness  for  the  sake  of  his  guilty 


160  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

creatures?  Did  Job  abhor  himself  in  dust  and 
ashes  in  the  presence  of  Him  whom  he  had  but 
little  offended?  Did  Christ  pray  to  his  Father, 
with  agony  and  bloody  sweat?  Do  the  angels 
fall  down,  and  hide  their  faces  before  God,  and 
tremble  at  his  presence  ?  And  shall  the  son  of 
pollution  and  the  heir  of  vengeance  sit  at  ease, 
and  look  carelessly  about  him,  when  the  Church 
of  his  crucified  Saviour  is  calling  upon  him  to 
present  himself  as  a  suppliant  sinner  ?  Is  it  safe 
to  sit  in  secular  composure,  neither  hot  nor  cold, 
while  God  is  expecting  prayer,  and  proffering 
grace?  Is  it  a  time  to  sit  in  complacent  security, 
while  a  double  death  and  a  single  way  of  escape 
are  before  us  ?  Can  we  be  so  insensible  to  the 
soul's  jeopardy,  and  all  the  frightful  possibilities 
of  a  dark  futurity ;  can  we  be  so  untouched  by 
the  long-suffering  of  our  compassionate  Father, 
who  still  holds  open  the  door  to  repentance,  as 
to  sit  unmoved  amidst  all  these  challenges,  vo- 
cations, and  alarms,  disdaining  the  attitude  of 
subjection,  and  the  homage  of  a  humbled  spirit? 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  161 


SECTION  XXII. 

THE  DUTY  OF  JOINING  IN  THE  PSALMODY. 

The  general  conduct  of  a  Christian  gentle- 
man in  respect  to  the  church  service  is  inex- 
pressibly important  in  the  way  of  edification. 
His  early  attendance ;  his  composed  demeanour ; 
his  respectful  observance  of  order  and  propriety ; 
his  devotional  postures ;  his  reverential  fear ;  his 
religious  abstraction ;  his  solemn  and  distinct 
responses ;  his  athletic  prayers  of  faith ;  his 
pious  breathings  of  confession  ;  and  the  various 
indescribable  indications  which  attest  the  sin- 
cerity of  his  worship,  and  give  to  his  whole  ex- 
terior the  attraction  of  godliness — how  gracefully 
do  these  lead  and  animate  the  feelings  and  de- 
portment of  all  around  him  ! 

It  may  be,  the  Christian  gentleman  has  not 
the  faculty  of  singing ;  if  so,  it  is  his  wisdom  to 
forbear.  If  he  cannot  be  an  auxiliary,  he  had 
better  withhold  his  interference;  but  if  he  is 
competent  to  join  in  this  awakening  and  beautiful 
part  of  the  church  service,  he  dares  not  refuse 
his  contribution ;  the  whole  sanctuary  rings  with 
invitations  to  sacred  song ;  it  is  the  exercise  of 


162  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

adoring  angels,  and  the  delight  of  saints ;  it  has 
the  warrant  of  divine  authority;  it  has  been 
consecrated  by  the  example  of  the  Redeemer ; 
it  is  one  of  the  greatest  glories  of  evangelical 
worship.  How  much  better  is  it  than  with  the 
cloud  of  incense,  or  the  smoke  of  sacrifice,  to 
visit  Heaven  with  the  voice  of  melody,  and  send 
forth  hallelujahs  to  the  throne  of  Omnipotence  [ 
It  has  been  the  proper  employment  of  the  socie- 
ties of  the  blessed  through  all  time — of  the 
general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first-born. 
Songs  of  triumph  celebrated  the  creation  com- 
pleted :  songs  of  deliverance  recorded  the  rescue 
of  the  chosen  seed ;  hymns  accompanied  the 
work  of  salvation,  and  conveyed  to  Heaven  the 
holy  joy  of  the  first  Christians ;  throughout  the 
records  of  inspiration,  throughout  the  annals  of 
the  church,  throughout  the  scene  of  the  material 
world,  innumerable  calls  of  mercy,  grace,  and 
pardon,  lay  the  voice  and  organs  of  man  under 
contribution  to  his  dying,  redeeming,  reconcil- 
ing, life-giving  God,  the  builder  of  the  universe, 
the  conqueror  of  death,  the  king  of  saints. 

The  Bible  is  full  of  poetry  and  the  materials 
of  music.  Infidels  have  stolen  largely  from  that 
treasury  of  song.  And  shall  the  service  of  the 
Christian  church  be  tame  and  tuneless  under  so 
much  holy  provocation?  or  shall  it  leave  the 


Christian  gentleman.  163 

singing  to  persons  no  otherwise  qualified  than 
by  their  alacrity  to  sing,  or  to  vulgar  combina- 
tions of  rustic  professors?     The  minstrelsy  of 
the  temple  was  David's  supreme  delight,  who 
has  bequeathed  to  that  church,  which  the  Holy 
Ghost  presented  to  him  in  prospect,  an  exhaust- 
less  store  of  melodious  worship.     The  psalms 
are  full  of  encouragement  to  sing  the  praises  of 
Jehovah,  and  they  supply  the  sublimest  subjects 
on  which  the  faculty  of  singing  can  be  employed. 
They  were  adapted  by  David  to  the  music  of 
the  temple ;    and  in  a  variety  of  versions  they 
offer  themselves  to  the  pious  Christian  as  the 
best  medium  through  which  his  love  can  be 
declared  of  his  dear  Redeemer,  so  beautifully 
therein  announced  and  prefigured  in  his  suffer- 
ings and  his  glory.     What  is  there  of  hope, 
peace,  or  consolation,  which  is  not  conveyed  by 
these  songs  of  Sion  to  the  necessitous  soul  of 
man  ?  Below  the  shining  surface  of  their  poetical 
beauties  they  hide  the  treasures  of  spiritual  wis- 
dom :  beyond  the  scope  of  their  tangible  boun- 
dary they  transport  us  to  the  border  of  the 
invisible  world;    by  the  instructive  events  of 
Jewish  history  they  alarm  the  wicked,  revive 
the  penitent,  console  the  afflicted,  and  confirm 
the  faithful.     They  magnify  the  Lord  in  his 
doings,  and  lay  open  the  spiritual  history  of  the. 


164  THE  SABBATH  OP  THE 

world,  presenting  a  path  of  discovery  continually 
opening  before  us,  refulgent  with  the  footsteps 
of  the  Messiah,  and  resounding  with  the  pro- 
mises of  the  Gospel.  It  is  there  that,  in  allu- 
sions to  the  natural  Israel,  we  see  adumbrated 
the  fortunes  of  the  spiritual  Israel — the  Christian 
Church;  it  is  there  the  kingdom  of  grace,  the 
glory  of  the  saints,  the  passage  of  Jehovah 
through  the  wonders  of  his  creation,  travelling  in 
the  greatness  of  his  strength,  the  victories  of 
faith,  the  accomplishment  of  the  promises,  the 
doom  of  sinners,  and  the  consummation  of  all 
things,  are  set  forth  with  the  utmost  majesty  of 
diction,  vivacity  of  truth,  and  beauty  and  variety 
of  allusion  and  comparison.  It  is  there  that,  in 
the  private  life  of  holy  David,  we  see  personified 
the  holier  Son  of  David,  the  Lord  of  all  things, 
both  in  heaven  and  earth :  it  is  there  that,  in  the 
form  of  allegory,  we  trace  a  continued  series  of 
prophecy :  in  Egypt,  in  the  wilderness,  in  the 
fortunes  of  the  chosen  people,  in  the  fruitful 
Canaan,  we  see  in  figure  the  bondage  of  sin,  the 
Christian  warfare,  the  happiness  of  the  redeemed. 
In  the  ritual  sacrifices,  the  services  of  the  law, 
and  the  oifices  of  the  priesthood,  are  shadowed 
forth  the  great  sacrifice  for  all  men,  the  spiritual 
temple,  and  "  the  High  Priest  for  ever,  after 
the  order  of  Melchisedec."     In  the  pictures  of 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  165 

David's  sufferings,  we  see  the  Man  of  Sorrows ; 
in  Solomon's  magnificence,  the  more  than  mortal 
majesty  of  the  King  of  Glory.  It  is  there  that 
we  see  depicted  the  Great  Captain  of  our  salva- 
tion, girding  his  sword  upon  his  thigh,  and  sur- 
rounded with  the  trophies  of  his  victorious  grace; 
or  anointed  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  his 
fellows,  the  bridegroom  of  his  church,  that  comes 
forth  to  meet  him,  in  her  odoriferous  vesture  of 
gold  and  embroidery. 

Who,  when  these  Psalms  are  chanted,  sung, 
or  said,  can  sit  or  stand  unconcerned,  with  va- 
grant thoughts  or  vacant  gaze?  Not  the  Chris- 
tian gentleman  ;  if  he  ever  sings,  he  sings  upon 
this  occasion.  What  singer  can  refuse  the 
tribute  of  his  voice  to  subjects  so  enchanting? 
Only  he  or  she  whose  voice  has  been  dedicated 
to  mischievous  or  unmeaning  sing-song,  or  made 
the  vehicle  of  senseless  sound  and  vapid  senti- 
ment. 


15 


166  THE  SAUBATH  OF  THE 


SECTION  XXIII. 

THE  SUBJECT  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN* 
SABBATH  CONTINUED.— GENERAL  CONCLUSION, 

The  Christian  gentleman  does  nothing  for 
display — nothing  with  affectation;  and  yet  he 
carries  to  all  things  a  sort  of  sacred  tact,  and  an 
unconscious  propriety  of  behaviour.  His  walk 
into  church,  and  his  walk  out  of  it,  are  like  his 
walk  in  life,  decorous,  simple,  and  sedate. 

Full  of  the  honesty  of  real  meaning,  his 
carriage  comports  with  his  situation  and  object; 
he  neither  courts  nor  shuns  observation;  he 
has  a  direct  and  professed  purpose  in  going  to 
church,  and  to  that  he  addresses  himself,  with- 
out regard  to  the  eye  or  comment  of  man ;  it 
is  his  commerce  with  eternity — his  earnest  ne- 
gotiation with  his  God ;  his  heart  is  in  it ;  there 
is  nothing  foreign  to  it  in  his  look  or  manner ; 
neither  gesticulations,  nor  salutations,  nor  whis- 
perings, nor  greetings,  divide  his  attention; 
nothing  disturbs  the  polarity  of  his  mind.  On 
leaving  the  house  of  prayer,  he  walks  quietly 
and  uncovered,  till  he  ceases  to  tread  on  holy 
ground.     While  others  are  impatient  to  resume 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  lfrT 

their  worldly  topics,  his  thoughts  still  linger 
within  the  sanctuary  ;  while  others  are  employed 
in  remarks  on  the  preacher  or  his  sermon,  he 
tacitly  examines  and  criticises  himself;  while 
others  are  satisfied,  he  still  thirsts  ;  while  others 
fall  back  within  the  world's  enclosures,  he  con- 
tinues his  pilgrimage  onwards,  with  the*  land  of 
rest  before  him ;  while  the  loose  devotion  of 
others  drops  from  them  at  the  church  porch,  his 
habitual  religion  takes  faster  hold  upon  him,  with 
every  renewed  exposure ;  its  analogies  follow 
him  into  life  and  society  ;  his  soul,  which  has 
dressed  itself  before  the  mirror  of  the  Gospel, 
still  wears  its  white  investiture,  attracting  the 
homage  of  gentle  spirits,  and  forbidding  the 
touch  of  unhallowed  communication. 

The  heart  of  the  Christian  gentleman  is  in  a 
tender  state  when  he  comes  new  from  the  house 
of  God  ;  a  tenderness  which  becomes  soreness, 
when  he  contemplates  the  state  of  things  around 
him.  Scarcely  has  he  come  into  the  open  air, 
when  the  sound  of  wheels,  and  silly  talk,  and 
insane  laughter,  assails  his  ears ;  scarcely  is  he 
out  of  the  hearing  of  God's  awful  dealings  with 
his  creatures,  the  records  of  his  might,  the 
mysteries  of  his  grace,  and  the  visitations  of 
his  wrath ;  hardly  has  the  organ  ceased,  or  the 
church-yard  been  crossed,  when  a  world  bursts 


168  THE  SABBATH  OF  THE 

upon  him,  wherein  an  open  indifference  to  all 
these  things  prevails;  wherein  the  Sabbath  is 
employed,  as  if  the  Lord's  brief  term  in  it  had 
run  out,  and  the  inheritance,  with  a  full  right  of 
disposition,  had  reverted  to  man,  to  devote  it  as 
interest  or  humour  may  suggest — to  traffic,  toil, 
or  diversion ;  to  the  office,  the  counter,  or  the 
festive  board ;  to  gossiping  visits ;  to  the  gather- 
ing and  propagation  of  news ;  or  to  the  fluttering 
tumult  of  parks  and  promenades. 

From  such  unlovely  scenes  the  Christian 
gentleman  is  glad  to  escape  into  the  bosom  of 
his  family;  happy  if  the  domestic  scene  present 
a  contrast  to  what  he  has  witnessed  abroad. 
And  it  generally  mu^t  so  do  ;  for  the  wise  ex- 
ample and  admonitions  of  a  parent  have  our 
better  nature  on  their  side ;  and,  what  is  better 
still,  the  earnest  of  that  new  nature  which  is  the 
great  conqueror  of  the  will  and  the  reclaimer  of 
our  wild  humanity. 

The  ways  of  God  are  unsearchable.  A 
Christian  is  not  always  allowed  to  see  the  con- 
summation of  his  pious  wishes  in  respect  of  his 
children's  dispositions  and  principles;  such  a 
case,  however,  is  an  anomaly  in  life,  and  a  mys- 
tery in  the  divine  administration.  A  stubborn 
heart  is  sometimes  made  more  stubborn  by 
caresses,  and  is  in  a  manner  congealed  in  the 


CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMAN.  169 

temperature  of  a  father's  embrace,  or  a  mother's 
bosom;  but  it  is  the  ordinary  course  of  Provi- 
dence to  bless  the  endeavours  of  a  Christian  in 
his  parental  rule.  When  such  is  the  constitution 
of  a  family,  the  Christian  father  has  a  tranquillity 
about  his  hearth  which  cheers  him  in  the  midst 
of  a  misjudging  world.  It  is  his  delight  on  the 
evening  of  the  Lord's  day,  to  draw  the  curtain 
between  the  scene  of  home  and  the  great  theatre 
of  Sabbath  profanation ;  to  read  and  meditate 
upon  the  Scriptures  of  truth;  to  vindicate  with- 
in the  circle  of  his  children  and  dependents 
Jehovah's  claim  to  the  total  Sunday ;  to  make 
it  a  day  of  deep  interior  delight ;  and  to  give  it 
a  refuge  from  the  storm  without,  in  the  retire* 
ment  of  his  peaceful  domicile. 


So  much  for  the  "  Portraiture  of  a  Christian 
Gentleman,"  who  has  not  in  these  pages  been 
designated  as  a  member  of  any  particular  church 
or  community  of  Christians.  It  would  be  un- 
just and  presumptuous  to  say,  that  the  exemplar 
is  not  to  be  found  in  any  congregation  of  sincere 
worshippers  of  the  triune  Jehovah  ;  but  it  may* 
without  offence,  be  said,  that  he  is  not  in  his 
worst  attitude,  on  the  floor  of  our  national 
Church;  that  church,  so  mild  and  charitable, 


170  GENERAL  CONCLUSION. 

so  conformed  to  the  earliest  and  purest  standard ; 
resting  on  Holy  Scripture  and  apostolical  foun- 
dations, simple  in  its  worship,  pure  in  its  creed, 
modest  in  its  pretensions,  pastoral  in  its  care ; 
with  a  liturgy  full  of  life  and  beauty,  a  discipline 
of  sound  ordinances,  and  a  doctrine  of  peace 
and  salvation ;  within  whose  scriptural  pale  the 
Christian  gentleman  may  freely  exercise  his  high 
and  honourable  commission. 


THE  ENB. 


i 


.      MM 


